


Shinobi Sorceress

by ThePhantomDragon



Series: Shinobi Sorceress [1]
Category: Naruto, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dysfunctional Family, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Magic, Other, Randomness and Insanity, Rivalry, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-04-01
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-02-11 07:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 42,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2058903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePhantomDragon/pseuds/ThePhantomDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Changes, Harry's daughter is sent to Konoha where she meets a certain blond ninja. In short, Uzumaki and Dresden might not be the most ideal mix when a peaceful existence is what you had in mind. Lots of humor, family/friends stuff, and plenty of twisted angst later because I am just that evil.<br/>Any Akatsuki members reading this may want to start writing a will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

                                            

**Prologue**

Ebenezer McCoy couldn't remember the last time he had felt this exhausted both mentally and physically. The last time this feeling of empty infinity swallowing his chest and soul whole had been almost forty years previous, when his beloved daughter Margaret had poured out her life-force to save her son by sealing away the White King's ability to feed since it was the biggest middle finger she could serve up to the bastard since killing him was unfeasible for reasons as of yet unknown.

He hadn't even known the details of her passing until just a few days ago when the hell spawn's son, correction, _his grandson,_ Thomas,had explained to him the reasoning behind the extensive help they were receiving from Thomas's older sister Laura who was in truth the one controlling the now literal puppet king.

Sighing and rubbing a hand over his balding dome, he made his way from the front pew in the chapel of St Mary of the Angels to the subterranean storage room that Father Forthill had converted into a bunker for just such occasions as this.

Opening the door as quietly as possible, he slipped in and allowed for his eyes to adjust to the meager offering of light from the adjustable lamp set to low. When he could see, his full attention fell on a cot at the far end of the room mostly occupied by an enormous lump off fur.

Mouse, the oversized Temple Dog shot his head up in awareness, but upon seeing him relaxed and glanced down in question.

Ebenezer swallowed and approached slowly till he was standing by the bed. The feeling of choked surrealism rushed back to consume him whole.

He had thought, had been so sure. Harry had been able to take care of himself. He had taught the boy responsibility; never again had he thought he would have to see a child of his own blood suffer for their parent's past.

 _Fate was never as kind as we would wish._ He thought as he slowly reached down to brush away the stray locks of hair but his hand came up short.

The child was too peaceful, too pure for the touch of one such as himself. Her dark hair with it's shallowest of waves, the slender nose, and delicately formed lips were painfully reminiscent of her mother.

But the rest… he swallowed as his heart once again threatened to climb up his chest and choke him. The rest was far too excruciatingly familiar.

The large dark brown eyes with their over expressiveness that screamed a personality of its own, the sharp yet soft angles of her face, and that damn chin with all the stubbornness of her predecessors.

The tranquility was broken by a small cough from behind.

Knowing who it was, the personal aura informing him, he turned to face the second newest addition to his slowly enlarging family.

Thomas nodded respectfully and motioned him outside.

Glancing down to reassure himself the child still slumbered undisturbed; he followed the younger man to the hall, closing the door a fraction to blot out most of their voices whilst being able to keep an eye on her.

"I have the papers." Thomas held up the thick, official looking envelope he had been caring.

"And the family's relatives?"

"The truth. That the murder was perpetuated by parties with a grudge against Susan from her reporter days, which were the original reason for putting her daughter up for adoption, and now Harry has managed to obtain custody on this basis and will be moving Maggie to a safer location. They were too distraught already to put up much of a fight."

"Good." Ebenezer nodded, allowing his eyes to meet his grandson's to convey his gratitude. He could do so without worrying about a soulgaze since they had gotten that out of the way several days previous when Thomas had given his true identity. Of course Ebenezer knew already but he had insisted on seeing the boy's soul to know where they stood.

"Nice of Susan to have the courtesy to stick Harry's name on the birth certificate or it would have been a real headache." Thomas grumbled. "Are you sure you want to do this?" He asked again. He trusted the man, Harry had and he was their grandfather after all; but this. Was it just a bit much?

McCoy let his head fall to his chest as he stared a hole in the hardwood floor. "We can't keep her." He sighed raising his eyes to rest on the sleeping child.

"So your plan is to dump her god knows where since you won't tell me and pray Mab or someone else doesn't show up for a repeat performance?" Thomas started seething.

"Incase you haven't noticed it's not that simple. After what she's been though do you honestly think she's just gonna adjust back to normal society? You think she's going to forget what she knows and get on with her happy little life like nothing has changed?" By now Thomas was having trouble not yelling at the old man. He hated the way he just stared at the kid like he didn't hear a word.

"This is precisely why I must do what I am about to." Ebenezer said quietly, putting the brakes on Thomas's triad. "I know what Harry meant to you and what Maggie must mean to you; but trust me, this _is_ for the best."

Ebenezer's jaw twitched while he tried not to sigh as he watched his surviving grandson look at the girl in the room with sorrow etching every contour of his face.

"She looks so much like…" Thomas cut the sentence short as he tried to work around his suddenly tight throat.

Ebenezer let it hang. He shared the same sentiment.

It was a face he had known so well in a lifetime past. One that he had hoped to finally have stopped haunting his every dealing with the power that had snatched the last. Yet was now here again, more beautiful and perfect and just as heart warming in a way that blistered old wounds which would never fully heal.

"Trust me boy. This is the best road, for all of us." Trying not to let his emotions roughen his voice too much he turned away and grunted, "Now say goodbye."

Thomas watched the old man retreat back up the stairs before slipping in to sit on the edge of the cot. After offering the mammoth mutt a grin and friendly scratch behind the ears he turned his attention to the subject of last week's hoopla.

Small and thin with hair that had an all to familiar bad habit of getting in her face, Maggie reminded him so much of the first time he had seen her then teenage father. Currently she was asleep curled up in a ball around, not surprisingly, Mister the cat.

It seemed Mouse's human intuition included understanding of the intimate bonds between children and pets, because after relinquishing guard of his late master's apprentice too her family, the dog stayed put in Father Forthill's kitchen only long enough for a quick refueling before striking out to find his wayward feline companion, which he located in an ally near their old home. Between the two of them they had done more to sooth the little girl than anything else their human counterparts had attempted and now she could hardly be seen without them.

Choking back the lump wanting out in his throat, Thomas brushed the stubborn strands from his niece's face before leaning over to plant a kiss on her brow.

However, it seemed he wasn't as delicate as he hoped because she stirred then sat bolt up.

"It's Ok Maggie," Thomas whispered soothingly and rubbed her shoulder to reassure her of such. "I just came to say goodbye."

Maggie nodded. "I know." The small whisper almost breaking Thomas's heart with the brave front she tried to put up, though the quivering lower lip said she was terrified.

"I got you something." He held up the gold box to her and didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry with relief when she snatched it out of his hands and tore at the ribbon. At least she still enjoyed her childish impatience where these things were concerned, that was a good sign, the girl had as much of her dad's resilience as she did his lack of finesse.

Finally untangling her prize from its bindings, Maggie pried the lid off the box and peered in eagerly. "A necklace?"

"A locket." He corrected, lifting the object from the box to show her properly. It was a beautify hand crafted, elliptical adornment of gold engraved with a pentagram on the front with diamond specks at each star tip. Handing it to her he tried not to wince at what the salesclerks would say if they could see its intended recipient clawing at the delicately crafted piece to find which side it opened at. "I had it made for you and there's a picture inside of your family."

Thomas tried not to remember the blood spattered rooms he had passed through to get too the Mendoza family albums. The local police had been forced to call in a team of specialists just to be able to figure out which mangled piece went on which body pile.

"They weren't my family, not really."

Thomas grabbed the quivering chin and gently forced her to meet his eyes. "They were, and will always be, your family because family is not who you are related to, it's who you care about and love. The people closest too you…."

XXXXXXXX

_The people closest too you!_

Hiruzen Sarutobi, Third Hokage of Konhagakure, stared down at the determined eight-year-old before him.

"And why would you wish to be called such, little one?"

"Because he is my family! Taking this name proves that no matter what, I will stand by what is precious to me even if it means dieing to protect it!"

The old man smiled. In the short months since coming here, the wizard child had smashed through barriers of racial difference, skill, and age. Now she stood before him demanding to be classified with the one thing most others hated more than any enemy army bent on destroying their home.

"You understand of course what this will mean to others do you not?" He looked her dead in the eye with all seriousness.

She stared back unwavering. "Yes," she proclaimed. "It will let them know that there is more to what they may see on the surface." She was almost crying now.

"I don't know much about this land and I don't know why they hate him." She all but sobbed. "But what I do know is he is my closest friend and I will _never_ leave him no mater what. Even if it means I have to become an outcast despised by all!" Now she was screaming, something Sarutobi had not seen since her arrival four months previous.

"I _will_ die before they lay another hand or bruise on him again! I will protect him!

"BECAUSE HE IS MY BROTHER!"

The Third Hokage smiled. _Margaret, you would be proud.She is truly of your lineage._

"Very well then." He motioned the now shaking girl forward. "From this day on, he is your responsibility. You two will be family, as you say. If anything should happen to him, it is you who will be held accountable for his life. Am I understood?"

"Yes." Was the determined reply. "I do!"

"Well then," he came around from behind his desk to crouch before her. "I congratulate you on your new family.

"Uzumaki Yuki."


	2. Chapter I: My Name is Yuki Uzumaki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let the madness begin.

**_4 years previous_ **

"Maggie-chan, Maggie-chan." Maggie turned to grin at the hyperactive blond happily bouncing behind her.

"Yeah Naruto." In the three-and-a-half months since her arrival the two had become inseparable. Since neither had family or belonged to a clan they were cared for by the teachers and had each been given their own apartments next to each other, currently she was sitting by the window in hers watching the snow fall.

"Iruka is coming here to take us to watch the fireworks." Maggie smiled gently at the boy. The Chunin, despite some original misgivings (if she had gotten it right, she was still in the process of learning Japanese), had taken to looking out for the little blond, and now with her here it was the closest Naruto had ever come to a familial atmosphere.

Previously the only one who ever really bothered to pay much attention to Naruto was the Hokage, but since he was always busy caring for the village it left him with little more than precious few minutes at best to check in on the boy to see how he was progressing with his studies.

"I'm coming."

Grabbing her coat, she was searching for gloves that seemed to have a bad habit of disappearing thanks to a certain _someone_ when Naruto piped up, "Oh yeah, he says the Hokage told him you need to pick a Japanese name before the new semester starts."

The new semester **,** she thought. In a few days the Lunar New Year holiday would end and classes would resume at the academy. She hadn't joined the fall semester since her first months here had been dedicated to learning the language and customs of the Land of Fire, but now that she had mastered both to a degree that she would be able to get along passably well she would be joining Naruto and the other kids from her age group in training to become shinobi.

Wait, what did Naruto just say? A new name? _Oh right, as a ninja I'll be representing the village. People are already surprised that the Hokage took in a foreigner to be trained and my name isn't really much help either._

She remembered Iruka explaining to her how people hired the ninja from the different nations to go on missions for them and they were most likely to make their choice from nations with a strong reputation. Having a foreigner in their ranks was sure to raise questions, but as long as she blended in as much as possible her presence might not be questioned too much. However, having her name was like having a neon sign stuck to your forehead, not exactly something a shadow warrior wanted to be hauling around all the time.

"Ok, new name, any suggestions Whiskers?"

Naruto gave that special smile he reserved for times when she used the affectionate dubbing and started on a list of names that Maggie had to scramble to keep up with pronouncing let alone asking the meaning. Naruto meant well but sometimes that prankster side had a way of being counterproductive to what you were trying to accomplish.

Finally, after ten minutes of coming up with names, Naruto ran out of steam and took up Maggie's previous spot at the window. "Where is Iruka," he whined. "All this snow is going to refill the roads and make it so annoying to walk later."

"I guess," Maggie concurred as she joined him. "But it also means we can have a snowball fight later with Shikamaru and Choji."

Both boys were from Naruto's class, the former having taken upon himself to befriend the two younger boys where everyone else thought they were a waste of time and had gone so far as to extend that invitation of friendship to her. Because of the commonsense approach his father shared with the boy, he and Shikamaru's mother didn't mind the acquaintance quite as much as most of the other parents who, for reasons unknown, had vehemently forbidden their children from any contact with the blond and in turn herself.

"But snow is coooooooooooold." Naruto whined.

"I like the cold," Maggie said, "and it's pretty."

"It's wet."

"It's fun."

"It's also dangerous."

"Huh?" Maggie looked at her companion in surprise. "What makes you say that?"

Naruto looked sheepish as he smiled. "Well since we're talking about snow I just thought it was appropriate to point out." Maggie turned to watch the white flakes drifting lazily in the wind. Naruto had a point.

Despite its gentle, benign appearance, snow could turn lethal at moment's notice for those who were stupid enough not to see the signs. It seemed to have a habit of switching between cheery bits of sparkly fluff to an uncontrollable force of nature capable of wreaking mass havoc in its wake.

Somehow that idea appealed to her.

"Naruto, does Yuki count as a full first name?" Naruto looked at her puzzled.

"I guess, but why would you want to be called Snow?"

"Because…"

 _Because snow is beautiful. Because snow is gentle._ People always talked about how cute and pretty she was; _snow is fun_ , how sweet and kind she acted.

 _Because snow is also dangerous. Because snow can kill._ When given enough incentive it turned into a maelstrom of death for any stupid enough to be caught in its raging fury. _But people don't see the danger until it is too late._

 _Because snow was a gift, bringing joy and cheer; and snow was the phantom waiting, gathering its strength to attack._ People saw the child, weak and innocent; ignored the beast slumbering beneath the surface, biding its time for the right incentive to strike.

_Because snow is **cold.**_

Cold, that one word described best of all what she had felt since her loss. Numb, deliciously unfeeling frost flowing with chill fingers over her heart and soul, stopping all but what mattered the most, throwing everything in a crystalline sharpness that showed the way like nothing she had ever experience in her seven years of living.

Even her time with the vampires couldn't compare to the icy relief that was now her meaning for existence.

"Because Yuki suits me."

Naruto stared at her with his patented 'huh' look of bug-eyes and slightly muscle-less jaw. "Uuuum, ok. It is kinda nice."

Maggie smiled at him. "Now I just need a surname."

**_Present day_ **

The sound of the classroom door slamming open shook Yuki out of her scholastic stupor to see what the cause of the commotion was.

A ninja apologized for the interruption before whispering something to Iruka sensei who promptly got that annoyed/resigned look he got when one of the Uzumaki siblings got into some kind of trouble. And since one was sitting here wondering what all the noise was about it could only mean the other. "Yuki," he looked at the girl who wasn't trying all that hard to hid the smile tickling the corners of her mouth. "Where is your Ototo?" **(1)**

**_4 years previous_ **

"Surnames are the name of your family right?" Naruto sat picking a scab on his knuckle, the only thing he had ever named was a gecko that used to live under his bed. Naming humans was a lot more work. Why did people have to have so many names for one person?

"So they don't keep getting people with the same name mixed up, Baka!" Yuki grumbled when he asked. "They have their name and then the name of their family to distinguish between each other," she frowned again.

 _Their family name._ She could ask if translating hers was a possibility, but somehow that just didn't seem to fit. If she was going to be a ninja then she should take something closer to home.

"Heh heh," Naruto laughed wistfully. "I wish I had a family, with a big sister like you."

His declaration stunned Yuki. "Why like me?" she asked bewildered.

"Because you're cool and nice and you always take care of me. At least that's what Shikamaru says big brothers and sisters are supposed to be like." Yuki smiled gently. She could recall saying something very similar to her younger twin brothers from her adopted family.

Like her, Naruto no longer had a family; it was something that had served to draw them even closer together. There was nothing they could do about their pasts, but if Naruto wanted a sister…

"How about Uzumaki?"

"Eh?"

"You said you wanted an older sister and I need a family name so Uzumaki seems as good as any."

Naruto's 'huh' look was back as he stared at her incomprehensibly. Slowly his eyes grew wider as what she was saying _finally_ dawned on him.

"You mean it?" he asked, hardly daring to hope she was serious

Yuki couldn't hold back the grin any more as she heard the poorly concealed excitement and anxiety. "What? You think maybe Umino would be better? If you don't want…"

"No, no, no!" Naruto cried and jumped up. "But," he continued more subdued, "You really don't mind being my sister. I mean after what happened…"

"Of course I want to be your sister." Yuki growled. "And I thought I told you to forget what happened on New Years Eve."

Naruto couldn't contain himself any longer and threw himself at Yuki. Squealing and babbling incomprehensibly.

"Are you trying to kill your Ane-san **(2)** by squeezing me to death?" Yuki laughed and ruffled the blond head buried against her chest. She smirked at the chunin standing mystified in the bedroom doorway.

"So," Iruka smiled. "What did I miss?

**_end flashback_ **

" _Where is your Ototo?"_

Yuki sighed. "I have no idea. He was right behind me when I left this morning."

Where _was_ Naruto? They were studying for the genin test tomorrow and Naruto had talked of nothing else for the last week. She was currently trying not to fall asleep on her feet after the fourth consecutive night in the forest with Naruto on one of his practice crusades.

Adding a sigh of his own, Iruka dropped his exercise book on the desk and followed the ninja to the door. "Everyone please review their chakra control until I return." That being said, he left. As soon as he was gone, the tittering began.

"I'll bet he finally lost his nerve and realized it's pointless to test tomorrow cuz he'll just fail again." Yuki narrowed her eyes at the speaker four persons down the line.

"I'm sorry, what was that Hiroto?"

Hiroto 'eeped' and involuntarily jumped to face her. "I seem to recall someone making a substitution jutsu that looked like it was half melted. But that couldn't have been you, could it?"

Hiroto tucked his head down and hurried too his seat. The ribbing nipped in the bud; everyone went back to what they were supposed to be doing, more or less.

Yuki folded her arms on the desk and rested her chin on top. It was not unlike Naruto to skip school, but he kept trying so hard…

Unless exceptionally talented, students generally waited to test with their whole class. Naruto, characteristically, had insisted on taking the exam a soon as he thought himself capable of passing, which, in this case, was two years ago.

He failed that time and the next.

Tomorrow he would have another chance, but was he taking that seriously?

 _Nooooooo, you just have to go do something crazy,_ Yuki tried not to growl as tick-marks started forming on her head. _If you fail this time because you goofed off, I will SOOOOO use your ass for shuriken practice._

"What do you think was so interesting he couldn't have invited us along?" Choji asked around a mouthful of dry squid.

Yuki exhaled loudly through her nose and shook her head at her rather large friend. "I have no idea."

 _Nerves_ , she growled, _of course_. One way Naruto and herself especially favored to relieve pent up anxiety was to drive the villagers insane, since watching them get all bent out of shape over a little mirroring (hem hem, what? that transformation really did a good job of showing what that lady would look like if she laid off the pork) was rather hilarious and an excellent nerve relaxant.

 _Sooooooo_ , _what did he decide to do this time?_ She could forgive him for excluding her if it was funny enough.

But she wouldn't forgive him for leaving her to share the same desk with Sasuke _again_. What was it with these girls anyway?

She could understand Naruto's puppy crush on that pink haired girl, Sakura, even if it was because she had pulled him out of a pit when the two of them got teamed together on a survival exercise, but SERIOUSLY!

 _If the boys had as much nerve as these girls do I would go NUTS!_ It seemed the majority of the female populace of their year was perfectly capable of harassing the other pupil but was too shy to sit next to him, with the exception of Sakura and Ino.

At least the guys who thought she was cute had the decency to restrict themselves to watching and drooling (something she found exceptionally disturbing), though maybe, now that she thought about it, it had more to do with the fact that getting close to her meant you got a free little bundle of hyperactive, brain-rattling thrown into the deal.

On top of having to put up with constantly playing referee for the class's kunochi crossfire, she was welcome to the full contempt of the class's resident Uchiha. As well as being a natural at mastering jutsus and battle techniques the boy was from a long line of proud shinobi that could be traced all the way back the Sage of the Six Paths, all of which came wrapped up in a nice package of emo sulkiness. And he had no fondness for competition to being number one in class.

Not that she cared about who was better, originally. If the dammed teme would just dig his head out of his ass for three seconds he would see all she wanted was nearly the same as him, revenge on those who had torn away everything that was their past life, leaving them in the dirt to put together the fragments best they could.

The difference was she found a life and family; he insisted on labeling every form of humanity unable to keep up with him as insignificant nuisances. But the one thing he hated more than whatever bastard he had a pickle with, was her.

 _Sexist bigot._ Yuki pointedly kept her nose to her scroll and ignored the glares cast her way when Sasuke's attention took the occasional wandering.

Really, was it her fault she spent hours training with Naruto in an attempt to get his levels up to somewhere near decent? Or that she took offense to every fuck with a mile long dick shoved up their ass?

She honestly hadn't intended to endeavor for the position of fist in class, but after the Uchiha called Naruto a waste of effort for the second time she had been forced to kick him in the nearest mud puddle and get to work on notching down his ego a bar or two.

Unfortunately the only ego he seemed to have concerned his ability to be the best. Soooooo that was exactly what she went for. Admitably it had been a real bother for the most part the first year, not having the first two years of academy training had put her at a disadvantage but excessive overtime working with Naruto had taken care of that.

Now it was an ongoing war to see who would come out on top and the cheering sections were really creating the possibility of human spontaneous combustion becoming feasible. Iruka sensei had better find Naruto soon or else, if Sasuke made a comment she wasn't sure she wouldn't…

BANG!

The sound of the door being thrown open resounded in the immediate silence of the room. No one spoke as a trussed up blond was chucked in the room followed by a highly irritated sensei that wasted no time getting to work on a lecture.

"You failed the graduation test last time and time before that. Tomorrow you've got another chance and you're messing up again." Naruto 'hmphed' and ignored Iruka who got that look that made everyone quiver in fear of what he would do in yet another attempt to knock some sense of responsibility into the boy's head.

Everyone minus a rather resigned older sister jumped in their seats as he turned on the class. "Because you missed it Naruto, everyone will review the transformation jutsu!"

Yuki 'awwwed' with the rest and stood, frowning at her the desk. She had left shallow gouge marks in the wood again. Darn, were her nerves really that bad she had gotten worked up over something that she normally would have rolled her eyes at and thrown out some smart comment to annoy everyone into minding their own business, cuz hey, everyone hates a wiseass.

"Grrrrrrr," Yuki flexed her shoulder blades together and cracked her neck. _I need to get some sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep._ She yawned and plodded down to join her wayward sibling.

"Sooooo, what did you do this time?" Yuki grinned sleepily as she squeezed into the line, trying not to giggle at the 'poor puppy' look Naruto gave her till she let in and released his bonds. Noticing the slumped shoulders, she reached up and rustled the blond spikes.

"Gaaaah, what was that for?" Naruto jumped and glared at her. Yuki couldn't help it and laughed as Naruto sulked and held onto his head like he was afraid she might try to hit him. Well maybe she might, it depended on his answer.

Getting right in his face she smiled with venomous sweetness, "I said, where were you Ototo?" Naruto 'gaahed' and backed away from her right into a very grumpy Shikamaru.

"You might as well cough up blond," Shikamaru stifled a yawn. "She looked like she was ready to nail the next idiot to go near her."

"Hey pipe down over there." Iruka ordered then called Sakura up.

Yuki tried not to fall asleep as par usual Sakura performed a perfect transformation into Iruka sensei then turned to squeal about it at Sasuke who obviously couldn't have cared if she turned into Godzilla in an attempt to hold him hostage. He was next.

 _Boringly flawless as always,_ Yuki mentally commented.

"Naruto Uzumaki."

"This is a total waste of time Naruto." Shikamaru's annoyed drawl was followed by Ino's whining. Really, with people like her was it any wonder the term 'dumb blond' was coined?

Naruto ignored them and stepped up to the front while Yuki crossed her fingers behind her back that he wouldn't start to much of a fuss or they would never get out of class.

"Transform!"

Everyone held their collective breaths as the chakra clouds cleared to show…

"Mmmmmwwwh." Everyone's senses went the way of drowning stones at the image presented to them and it was quite possible they would have suffocated had it not been for Iruka sensei's feedback.

 _Wow! I know it's kinda surprising, but isn't that just a bit of an overreaction?_ Yuki bit her lip to keep down the laugh that was exploding in her gut at the sight of her normally collected sensei laid out on the floor with shock induced nosebleed.

Naruto had no qualms about it however and gave full vent to his joy at having achieved his goal. Until Iruka blew up in 'hairdryer talk' mode that had the rest of the class cowering away in terror.

"Uzumaki Yuki!" Yuki smothered a grin, as she stood before the irate teacher. She couldn't help it; he looked hilarious with his headband askew, his normally neat ponytail now going every which way, and his eyes were still bloodshot and buggy which gave him the appearance of sinister comedy.

Well if Naruto's Sexy jutsu could do _that_ she wondered what her next trick could induce.

Hand signs, then…"Transform!"

Iruka almost hyperventilated at the second Naruto now standing in his classroom. Honestly, had the Uzumaki good sense simply been traded in for excess of insanity at some point?

"Yuki…" he got no further as the two 'Narutos' grinned slyly at each other and leaped forward to run in circles while giggling gleefully at their instructor's aggravation.

"Ha ha don't look at me I'm not the real Naruto," one chanted impishly.

"Hey don't be silly. We both know I'm not the real one."

"But then…" Suddenly they both stopped on either side of the irate man who barely had time to wonder at the wink that passed between the two before he was set upon by two very blond, very _naked_ girls.

"…Maybe you don't want to figure out which one of us is the _real_ Naruto." One purred and daintily grasped his chin with slim fingers. "You big, handsome hulk of ninja."

Suffice to say Iruka was forced to call an early end to class and accompany more than a few of his students to the school infirmary for revival.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

"Soap, bucket, scrub brush." Iruka piled the items on his student with more than just a little enthusiasm. "And I'm sure you can see where the Hokage Faces are."

"No Yuki you can not help him." Yuki shot her sensei a pouty glare. He still didn't get the point that whatever Naruto got into there was going to be a lot of arm twisting in order to keep her out. Besides, painting the Hokage faces was not something to be missed out on. Ok she would be cleaning it, but still it was funny if only because Naruto did it.

Iruka ignored the look. "He did this so he will clean it up. You have work to do and I won't allow you to be late." Even though he knew the bond they shared it was necessary they eventually learn to live life on their own. After tomorrow who knew what would happen, there was no guarantee for blood siblings to be placed in the same team and it had not been unknown for even the closest relationships to be strained almost beyond repair by separation and obligatory secrecy.

Yuki huffed and scowled, sometimes she thought the only reason Iruka had gotten her a job was to have more personal time to work on each siblings 'personality issues'. But he was right; there were only so many times she could play hooky before she was fired. Though why that bothered her was a mystery since after tomorrow she would probably have to quite anyway.

"Fine!" she glowered. "But no lengthy lecture afterwards, we have practice to do when he's done." With that she turned and marched out the school gate.

"You know she's gonna do something to get back at you for that right?" Iruka glared and hauled his loudly protesting student in the direction of his chastisement before he could escape to cause more trouble. The only cause for alarm would be if Yuki _wasn't_ plotting some form of revenge, it was part of her nature to headbutt every slight, even unintentional, aimed at her brother.

 _And that is how it should be. With powers and a devotion like their's who knows where things may go, hopefully for the better._ Iruka smiled secretly so the now quite Naruto wouldn't see. _My only prayer is you two will never lose that innocent stubbornness, because although you may not know it, it is your greatest strength. One I could never have hoped to teach you myself._

**XXXXXXXXXX**

"I see you made it today Yuki, I was starting to get worried Umino sensei finally decided to lock you and Naruto up for good." Yuki smiled at the small joke from her boss as she entered the store.

Muso Higurashi owned one of the village's two music stores and, thanks to Iruka's prompting, had been kind enough to overlook the gossip about the Uzumakis to give her a chance as store assistant and had since come to value her help.

Flora Mendoza had been a music teacher specializing in piano and the flute and saw to it all her children were well versed in both as soon as they were old enough to comprehend the instruments, knowledge that proved invaluable for Yuki. As well as selling instruments Higurashi was also a piano teacher whose wife was the regular school's music director, and after discovering Yuki's abilities began to call on her occasionally to help stand in for evening classes at the store.

Yuki shook her head and played along. "Sadly this last prank seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back. He's hauled Naruto off to maximum security and now I need your help to break my brother out before they start experimenting on his brain." Yuki said this with such a mournful expression Muso looked genially alarmed for several beats before adopting a very serious attitude.

"Well you do know the prison is in the middle of a volcano and guarded by chunin and special jonin. So you'll need to find some kind jutsu to repel heat and then to make yourself invisible…"

The banter continued as Yuki grabbed a cloth and began her rounds to ensure every instrument and shelf was spotless and perfectly organized. It had become sort of a tradition between her and the Higurashi's, whenever Naruto played an exceptionally conspicuous prank she would concoct some worse case scenario and they would spend the time they weren't waiting on customers churning out ideas on how to rescue him, each more bizarre and outlandish than the last.

When she had the store clean enough to perform surgery in Muso sent her to deliver a shamisen he had repaired to a tea house near the edge of town. If she hurried she could make it back before sundown and have enough time to fix dinner for her and Naruto before helping with class.

"Thank you so much for your help Yuki. I don't know how you manage to keep up with your lessons at the same time." Yuki gave a polite 'thank you' and hurried out before any more could be said on the subject.

Truthfully it was hard keeping up with both, but for Naruto's sake she could endure it. While the academy provided them with an allowance for basic necessities, along with the apartments for each and utilities, it just barely covered the cost of their weekly food and other small household items if she was careful on spending. Sadly beyond that and the rare treat from Iruka they were barely able to afford anything more since no one cared enough to help them.

Consequentially they ended up surviving mostly on ramen, since it was the cheapest, and the wild fruits, plants, and occasional small animal she managed to find in the forest around the village. Her part-time work earnings went to new clothes and a few small comforts they could not have gotten otherwise.

Often people asked how she could do it, denounce herself to such hardship for some child everyone else despised.

Because the answer was simple, he was her brother. Her _family._

**_flashback_ **

Thomas wanted to curse to high heaven, wanted to go back and vaporize every one of those slimy, mutant cretin, hell bitches personally. How dare they, making her watch as her life was shredded in a cataclysm of gore then laughing as they jeered her lack of knowledge of her true identity.

Wiping at eyes starting to stream she glanced back down at the locket. "There's one of my _real_ parents." She murmured softly.

Thomas grimaced as he remembered digging through his brother's lab for the box containing the small memoirs of Harry and Susan's time together. The place he called home for a year was reduced to a crisp but the box Harry dumped everything in had been in the lab where the concrete floor meant the only damage to the room was a slightly harder to open trapdoor and the mess left from when the cops trashed the place.

The picture he chose was from Harry and Susan's second Christmas, the one before the Bianca incident abruptly ended their relationship in the cruelest of methods imaginable. They stood in front of St Mary of the Angels church where they had joined the Carpenters for Christmas mass, framed by a gigantic tree. Harry with his arms around Susan and her laughing when he rested his chin on her head so they would both fit in the camera screen. Bright, sappy, sweet, and one hundred percent Thomas's little brother.

The ring Susan never got to wear he slipped on the locket chain. "For when you're big enough to wear it cuz it would be a shame to waste all your dad's hard work saving for it" he told the little girl when she asked. He grit his teeth as his personal 'shoulder angel' dusted off the volume labeled 'sins' to the section on how he had been the one to shove said woman into a mob of frenzied vampires, hence the reason the ring remaining unused to this day.

Maggie sniffed once more, dried her eyes, and attempted a smile. It was when she closed the locket that she noticed the engraving on the back. Squinting in the dim light, she tried to make out the minuscule wording. "There is no de… de…"

"Death," Thomas said kindly. "There is no death! The stars go down to rise upon some fairer shore, And bright on Heaven's jeweled crown, They shine forever more- John L. McCreery."

"Who's McCreery?"

The innocent question dug at the corners of Thomas's mouth, "The guy who wrote that. It means that even though the people we love are no longer with us, they're still watching us and we'll see them again."

"Like the stars?"

Mouse 'wumphed' softly, and gave her a solid nudge with his nose in his 'happy doggie' way, grinning as if to say 'you betcha'.

Thomas gave a firm agreement as he slipped the heavy chain over her head, it hung almost half way down her stomach but she would grow into it. "Let this be a reminder that there are still people who care about you and you are not alone in this world." He whispered, folding her in his arms and hanging on like the world would end if he let go.

**_end flashback_ **

It had been so hard to believe there could be anything good left in the world then. But like how it takes darkness to find the stars, Naruto had come blasting into her darkness to drag her back to the light of the living. Now she couldn't imagine a world without him, he was her little brother and family always took care of each other no matter how hard it got.

Last year she scraped together enough to buy Naruto a replacement set of protective goggles he had wanted for his birthday (he had finally grown out of the old pair). The look on his face had been well worth the long hours of exhaustion and stream of pompous students. After all, he had already done more than for her than he could ever know, how could she do any less for him?

**_flashback_ **

_You are not alone._ It really seemed that the opposite had more truth right now.

Maggie sat in a corner and tried to draw as little attention as she could, a tough feat. Even though some of the other kids had odd hair and eye coloring she was still the only foreigner in the room.

The old man Ebenezer called the Hokage had brought her here as soon as they arrived at the village of Konoha. He called it the Academy but Maggie wasn't quite sure what that meant though she figured it was something like a school due to the rooms filled with kids studying that they had passed on the way in.

The Hokage had introduced her to the other children then left her to fend for herself. The kids had made a few attempts to communicate but eventually got bored since she couldn't understand a word they were saying and ambled off to whatever they had been doing when she came.

Two days ago she had been so confident she would get over the loss of her family and instead use this opportunity to grow stronger, but now that bravado was dripping away like the rain with every second she sat huddled here. The rain outside was getting really loud and the way the other kids kept looking at her when they thought she wouldn't notice were starting to dig past the wall she had put up.

Damn she would not cry in front of them. Never, never, never again. But here the tears came…

"Anata wa daijōbudesu ka?" **(3)**

Maggie jumped up and pressed her back into the wall as hard as she could out of instinct that had been hammered into her response system. She gave a minuscule, shuddering laugh of relief.

It wasn't another one of those monsters. Na, the wizard, _my dad,_ she reminded herself, killed them all. Instead it was one of the other kids.

She had noticed him first since he had been the only one playing by himself in the room. With his blond, spiky hair and big blues eyes he could have passed for a foreigner except he had whisker marks on his face which she thought was weird.

He repeated the words again.

Maggie shook her head forlornly. "I can't understand you," she said sadly, shrugging her shoulders for emphasis. The blond boy looked at her for a few more moments then ambled away to the other side of the room.

With a sigh, Maggie slid back down and tucked her knees under her chin whilst staring at the floor in defeat. This was quit unnatural for her. Normally she had no problems with either making friends or at least someone to pick fights with so things wouldn't get too boring. Right now she couldn't even get someone else to understand her let alone stay for more than eight seconds.

Crying really sounded good right now. But she refused to give the waterworks the satisfaction. She had promised herself she would never let anyone see her cry or be weak again. Breaking a promise was like telling a lie and that was a bad thing.

"Anata wa sore o hoji suru tame ni shimasu ka?" **(4)** Maggie gasped and looked up at the familiar voice.

"Sore o toru, dōzo," **(5)** the blond boy smiled, nudging her this time with the stuffed animal he held out. "Sore wa daijōbuda." **(6)**

Maggie sniffed and looked at the bear. It was obviously old and well worn from extensive cuddling, but its over-sized grin with tongue hanging out and its extra-floppy ears had the effect all stuffies where created for.

"Thanks," She clutched the bear and managed a weak smile at the boy. Seeing that he responded with one so big his eyes scrunched closed and he gave a happy chuckle.

"What's your name?" She figured she was gonna be here a long time so why not get started on making friends, even if he couldn't understand her.

Well she was definitely right on the last part. On hearing her question he stopped laughing but kept a small smile as it was his turn to shake his head.

Scratching hers, she pondered how they were gonna get around this problem when she remembered how her mommy taught her little brother Nicky to talk. Reaching up, she gently poked the boy on the shoulder and repeated her question.

When this didn't work she changed tactic directions. This time she stabbed the finger at herself and quite emphatically stated, "Maggie M…" She froze suddenly as memory caught up to her.

The Mendoza's where her family, Thomas had said so, but that still didn't change the fact that they weren't related. Which meant Mendoza was not her name any more. Oh what was is that evil lady kept calling her real dad?

"Dresden!" She exclaimed happily. "My name is Maggie Dresden." Turning the finger back at him she asked, "And your's?"

The boy frowned and pointed at her then at him. His smile restarted as he seemed to get the point of what she was trying to tell him.

"Ma…gee Dress…dan."

"Close enough," Maggie smiled and nodded before returning to poking him in the chest just a bit harder than was necessary.

"Uzumaki Naruto."

Unlike Naruto, Maggie had no problem saying his name which caused his previous grin to go megawatt times fifty, then he started to laugh.

Maggie didn't know why just saying his name would cause such a reaction and was afraid she said it wrong. Even though her memory was sure she hadn't, she asked him anyway.

"No you said it right." An heavily accented voice replied. The speaker was a young man who had been watching the exchange between the two children from the doorway.

"Then why is he laughing?" Maggie was relieved and puzzled at the same time.

"Because you tried to understand him. The first kid to do so." The young man smiled and crouched on one knee in front of her. "By the way, my name is Umino Iruka."

The first kid to try to understand him? Why? Back home this was the kind of student teachers usually fawned over for being so cute and sweet.

"He has no family." Iruka explained when she asked. "The others…" he frowned and tried to think of a way to explain it without going into much detail. "They don't understand him. He's a little different because his parents died when he was born."

 _He's alone, just like me!_ Maggie realized. _Yet he's still so there really is hope for me._

"Well," Maggie said, "that makes two of us then." Iruka said something to Naruto, probably translating what she said. The little boy looked at her surprised and a little sad then mumbled something.

"He says he's sorry for your loss, but if you want he would like to be your friend, if you don't mind." Iruka translated, not hiding the hope in his eyes that she wouldn't turn him down like the others.

Something stirred in Maggie as she looked at the boy, she knew this feeling, it was the same one she got when she caught her late brother Max trying to hide a bruise from where one of his classmates shoved him in a bush. Anger at the injustice of it and a strange protectiveness, which was weird since she had just met this kid, yet somehow she knew he understood her better than anyone else had so far.

"Thank you," she said, allowing her eyes to show her sincerity, "I would like that."

As soon as Iruka translated this Naruto's face lit up like a solar flare and for the first time since the death of her family Maggie was able to fully smile without feeling the weight of everything that had happened.

Maybe there was hope for a new life after all.

**_end flashback_ **

A new life was exactly what being with Naruto had brought.

Oh it was hard and the people of the village with their intolerance didn't make it a world class picnic either, but no matter how bad things got Naruto was always there at the end of the day to tell her how much he loved and appreciated her, and if she was particularly down, that it would be better tomorrow. Every morning he had a smile that booted her out of whatever cloud had taken up residence during the night.

In return she took care of him, made sure he didn't get himself killed from his crazy training practices, cheered him on in spite of his many failings, and when everything was just too much, she was the shoulder he cried on. She was the one who protected him from the world because she never wanted to see that spark in his heart fade.

They supported each other, watched each other's back, and somehow got through each day to curl up to watch the stars and thumb their noses at a social order that said they should never have existed in the first place.

She stopped on a rooftop and shaded her eyes till she could just make out someone sitting on the First Hokage head and a smaller, obviously irate figure hanging just over the nose. She had to smile. It wasn't perfect, but they had each other and that was enough.

**XXXXXXXXXXXX**

Unknown to both groups they were being silently observed by yet another pair of fond eyes. The Third could hardly suppress a smile at the two sibling's antics. Despite his constant grumblings their pranks were in fact welcomed as a pleasant reprieve from his normally sober and tedious days of work and long hours. A warm feeling of fondness rose in his chest as he remembered the first time he had see them together, ah it seemed like just yesterday.

**_flashback_ **

"So, it looks like she really is as resilient as that thickheaded father of hers." Sarutobi Hiruzen commented. Ebenezer could only nod in reply as the both men watched the exchange between the two children via the Hokage's viewing ball and almost wanted to laugh with relief.

Maggie would be Ok here. His old friend the Third Hokage had promised to train her as ninja, but leaving was still as hard as the last time. Despite the laughter there was something about this picture that prodded the dustier recesses of his memories.

"The boy looks familiar. Who is he?"

"He is the son of our old comrade and pupil," the Third Hokage leaned back to regard his companion, "the Fourth Hokage."

"What?" Ebenezer leaned so close to the ball his nose was almost pressed up against the glass. "That's Minato and Kushina's son? The Kyuubi no Kitsune Jinchuriki?"

"Yes." The Third Hokage stated quietly, wondering what affect this might have on Ebenezer's opinion of the boy his granddaughter had just befriended.

The villagers already were making it hard enough on the poor kid by forbidding their children from playing with the boy out of hatred for the Fox Demon in spite of his decree that none should speak of the incident eight years previous. All they saw was the monster sealed inside instead of the innocent child who suffered for ignorant hate.

Surely Ebenezer knew the difference. "He looks… so much like his father."

"Acts like him as well." Sarutobi could not help the sprinkling of affection and pride for his former co-Hokage that danced on his tone. "Though I should be saying the same about your charge Blackstaff."

"Do not talk about Margaret." Ebenezer snapped. He did not need another person expounding the same thing everyone else had been since the girl entered into his care.

"Why not, you should be proud of your daughter. After all, she took your ambitions to levels you could only dream of."

"And look where it got her and Harry!" Ebenezer rounded on the old warrior. "I didn't bring Maggie here to be trained to fight their battles. Just teach her to how to protect herself, that's all I'm asking of you Sarutobi!"

The ninja took several long drags from his pipe and regarded his long time friend. The Blackstaff of the White Council of Wizards could be scary when he wished, but right now the truth was what he needed to hear even if he didn't want to.

"Whether you have noticed it or not, she is already fighting. What has happened will always have an affect on her. From here on, every lesson, every technique she learns, every battle she fights, will be overshadowed by the truth off what she is.

"We both know this and so does she. The only difference is that she has accepted this fact while you continue to deny it. She is her father's daughter, and your daughter's grandchild, _your_ great-granddaughter. No matter how far you may try to take her from it, her past _will_ catch up sooner or later.

"The only question is, when that day comes, will you be there to help her fight or will you continue to deny the reality that sometimes there are just some things we cannot do for the ones we love, no matter how much we may desire it otherwise."

Ebenezer grit his teeth at the lecture. Did the man not think he knew this? It was all he had been able to think about since making this decision. The life of a ninja was harsh and pitiless, exactly the kind of training Maggie needed if revenge was her wish.

And it was.

He had soulgazed her the minute the smoke had cleared enough for him to think about her future. Even though she had been witness to the downfall of the most outspoken threat to man since magic was forced from the annuls of modern life, she still wished the death of those that had aided the monsters responsible for destroying her family.

The only reason he had finally been able to make this decision was that, underneath all that pain and hate, her true wish was to never see another hurt the way she was.

Deep down, at the core of her being was the understanding that others had been hurt like her, maybe not as deeply, but she knew the damage the vampires caused. And from that understanding flamed a burning desire to ensure no one else suffered as she had.

It was an amazing awareness for one her age, but then Maggie had experienced things that even hardened wizards his age never even dreamed of being subject to, advanced maturity shouldn't come as to much of a shock.

With that in mind he finally made the heartbreaking verdict to deliver her to the land of fire. All her possible futures pointed to the same thing, she would fight and she would protect as many as she could, even if it killed her. At least here she would learn to hone that sleeping potential until she was fully ready to shoulder the responsibility of her choices.

And just maybe, by some miracle, she could change her fate from the same end of her predecessors.

Margaret had had the same dreams and ambitions as her granddaughter, but her time here had been one of war and conflict, hardening her to her own headstrong ways. Constant fighting had hard-bitten her too many things which inevitably led to her readiness to do whatever was required in order to win her fight with the White Council.

Maggie had the same fire and will of spirit but she was not yet so callous to the world. Perhaps there was still hope for this one.

She also had her father's stupidly kind heart that had been a gift from his non-magic father. The one that ended with him always hurting himself in some new suicidal way to protect even people he would have gladly used to pad his fall off the Eiffel Tower on a regular day.

As Harry enjoyed saying, 'while they were essentially the same, Darth Vader simply had too many brains for his own good, Luke was just so crazy and ignorant he couldn't tell when a white flag was the logically good idea even if you shoved it down his throat'. It was the same sentimentality that had surprised Ebenezer when he first took the younger Harry under his wing. At the time he fully expected the boy to be bitter and messed up over what happened, or at least scared.

As it turned out, Hoss had been quite remorseful over what he had done, but rather than pointlessly beating himself up over it like most people, he'd taken it in stride. Looking at the facts and drawing the most logical conclusion became the basis of his judgment, tempered by his decision to simply to what was _right_ damn it.

And his daughter was the same way. Like a dragon dropped in a lava pit, she simply shook off the clingy smut, accepted that the stingy crap was a part of life, and used it to become stronger.

Now he watched as she started a conversation with the younger Uzumaki via Iruka. To his not so astonished amazement, her smile gradually grew from pained gratitude to genuine happiness. Well as close as she could right now at least.

"Do not worry for her old friend." Sarutobi's gentle remonstrations broke through his musings. 'I will give her the care she needs to become a fine warrior with the flame of the ninja burning in bright in her heart. You have my word."

Ebenezer nodded mutely. Now all he could do was spray this did not turn into a complete disaster as the last time.

**_end flashback_ **

The Third chuckled quietly to himself. "Oh old friend, if only you were here to see her now. You would know how very wrong you were to doubt her heart."

Truthfully he had had his own misgivings about the girl after Ebenezer explained what he had seen in her soul. But on that snowy day in winter, when she smashed her way through the guards to announce her decision of name he had found himself put to utter shame.

"You would have been proud Kawa sensei," he whispered his late comrade's own chosen name to the silent room. "She is so like you in spirit. And Harry, though I have never met you, I'm sure you are more than proud of have sired such a fine daughter, may you both rest in peace."

The warm feeling stayed for several minutes before he was reminded of his reasons for spying on the two originally.

Another complaint of Naruto's behavior had come up several hours earlier. Personally he really didn't mind the defacement of the faces, they were just symbols some overly zealous council members had decided on nearing the end of the First Hokage's era.

What did sadden him though was the increased regularity of the incidents. While there were the normal friendly jokes between classmates, it disturbed him that over the last year the more public pranks seemed to multiply in frequency and outlandishness. He could see what they were, cries for attention, Even if it was to annoy the villagers at least it garnered some acknowledgment beyond hushed whispers behind hands as they passed and the constant reprimands for Naruto's bad grades and compliments for Yuki's good ones.

He was however at a loss on how to deal with it. He'd hoped Iruka might be able to talk to them and the young man had managed to curb things for the most part but it seemed with the approach of the genin exams their nerves started fraying, leading to the mischief.

He was fully confident Yuki would not have too much trouble passing; rather it was Naruto who worried him. The boy really did try hard and had made tremendous progress but it just seemed to never be enough.

 _Please,_ he prayed silently, _for both their sakes, let him pass._ He watched Yuki smile in the direction of the cliffs before turning back to continue her errand. _I fear what she may do if he does not._

**XXXXXXXXXXX**

Yuki happily bounced from branch to branch till she reached her destination, a small field near the river a ways back from the main practice area. Here and in the adjacent forested area a large selection of herbs grew in abundance and she often picked them to sell to the apothecary whose owner sent her son to Higurashi's for lessons. Over the years a few people had managed to set aside their differences with her to do a small trade on various items that also helped supplement her small income.

She just hoped she could pass the test tomorrow. Genin received a regular income for the missions they did and, from what she had managed to get out of Iruka, it was much more substantial than their allowances combined with what she made between the odd jobs.

 _Hmmm, maybe I should stop by the grove later and grab some fruit for a salad after this._ Naruto hated greens with a vengeance so fruit was the only way she could make sure he didn't get scurvy or some other weird deficiency disease, once had been plenty thank you. Also it was free since there were numerous fruit trees growing in the forests of the village thanks to years of students' seed spitting contests.

She got started stripping a sage plant; the leaves were her main source of antiseptics and compresses for Naruto's injuries from practice since it was free and quite effective. She had the feeling she would be needing a good quantity since whichever way the test went tomorrow, Naruto was sure to do something stupid and end up looking like a human scratching post.

The task was almost completed when a slight rustling alerted her to someone nearby. Her guess was a student from the academy since animals moved differently and older ninja were better at stealth.

Pretending to have trouble getting off a stalk, she wriggled a bit to her left so she could mask her moves. Another rustle sounded followed by two more. _Four of them, one of me. Let's even the odds a bit._

Smoothly she crouched and jumped; as she rose she pulled several suriken from her leg pouch and evenly distributed them among her hands. At the peak of her momentum she twisted and threw the weapons just a bit forward of the sounds' origins.

KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Yuki winced at the noise as the four stalkers tumbled from their hiding places. Oh surprise, surprise, Kaoru and his little gang. "Beat it Kaoru. I don't have time to play games today."

Kaoru, an annoying, very good looking boy, was a year Yuki's senior. He and his team had been sent back to the academy for some reason. The fourth was his cousin Han'nya who had failed the test last year and now saw it as his calling to terrorize the Uzumaki siblings.

"Where's that little punk of yours?" Kaoru hissed. "I want to see how long he can last under a genjutsu I have invented.

"Unless of course, you would rather go out with me."

Yuki cocked her head with a look of comical confusion. "Sorry... I don't understand boar. Could you repeat the question?"

The other boys snickered and Yuki cheerfully whistled as she went to collect her suriken only to find the way blocked.

Kaoru managed to keep a cool exterior but Yuki could see the outlines of anger forming around his eyes. "Come, come Yuki. There is no need to be like this. A pretty girl like you deserves to be able to enjoy herself every once in awhile. I'm sure you will learn to find me agreeable if you would only stop trying to deny your feelings long enough to see the special bond between us."

Oh ug!

Yuki mimed shoving her fingers down her throat. "I'm sorry what was that? I was too busy trying to keep my guts from doing the funeral dance at the sight of your ugly mug."

"You…you…I offer you what any other girl in the village would fight tooth and nail for. And all you can think of is that…that annoying, insane little... _brat_. How can you stand being with such a loser like him!"

"What did you say?" The other boys started to whimper as Yuki turned eyes barely containing the suddenly seething rage in them.

It was a look that had caused most people to call her 'demon' but apparently Kaoru was as suicidal as he was stupid. "I said, how you can stand being with such a looser like him when you could have someone like me. Someone who could give you everything you ever wanted."

Yuki felt a cold fusion run down her spine, taking with it the heat in her mind to leave a calm chill in its place. "You ask me how?" Yuki chuckled menacingly.

"Isn't it obvious?" she sneered. "You have some nerve talking to me like that. You may be rich, good at your training. But all that is worth _nothing_ to me.

"Don't you get it? Naruto may be slow, may be like you said, an annoying, insane little maniac.

"But he's _my_ annoying, insane little maniac!" She was walking now, forcing Kaoru back one slow step at a time. "If anyone is a brat here it's _you_ Kaoru."

"St…stop it!" Shikijo, the only reasonably sensible one in the bunch, squealed shrilly, the other boys were already huddled together in a corner of the clearing. "There is no need to get violent. After all," he grinned desperately, "we're all ninja of the Land of Fire, heh, right?"

Yuki paused in her stalking of Kaoru to turn her menacing grin on the other boy who looked ready to pass out. "Fire?" she said sweetly, "you do know what they say about playing with fire, don't you?"

Here she paused and took the time to look each full in the face. "You get _burned._ "

"So," she turned back on Kaoru, "you want to play with fire do you? Well, perhaps I should show you the _true_ nature of that fire." She really didn't want to do it but this had to end here and now with a clear warning before it got any worse. The last time she had left things unchecked still caused her stomach to clench in anger.

"Look me in the eyes Kaoru!" she commanded. The boy was now pressed up against a tree sniveling with punctuated whimpers. Gasps of horror sounded from the other boys.

They had all heard the stories of what others had seen in those dark, fathomless orbs. Now they were to bear witness as the rumors they ignored came true. Why oh why had they been blind to all else but their desire for her beauty until it was to late.

Kneeling, Yuki felt nothing but contempt for the quivering coward before her. Gently she grasped the pale face and raised it to meet hers.

"You began this Kaoru," she whispered gently. "Now face your punishment like a ninja should."

The surrounding forest exploded with motion as birds and small creatures flew and sprung from their perches and holes, all in a bid to escape the scream of pure terror that rang through the suddenly silent woods.

**XXXXXXXXX**

Sounds of laughter flowed from beyond the half curtains that shielded the occupants of the restaurant in a small measure of privacy. Yuki relaxed and sighed as she felt the exuberance resonated through her like a warm balm.

Pushing aside the cloth she slipped up silently behind instructor and pupil who were in the middle of a lively debate.

"You can only wear the Leaf headband when you finally graduate from the academy and become a ninja." Iruka kindly informed the grinning blond. "You've gotta pass the test tomorrow."

"That is so un-cool." This time Yuki joined in the laughter at Naruto's whining as she took a seat next to him.

"Well it's the truth. Maybe now you'll have some incentive to actually pass this time." Naruto made a face and stuck out his tongue at his sister.

"What took you so long," he whined. 'I was starting to wonder if you got lost again or something."

Yuki laughed and ruffled her brother's blond spikes, eliciting another wave of whining and cheerful banter till their ramen arrived. "Thanks Iruka sensei," Yuki was sure to put as much of her gratitude into the sentence as she could. She had returned from her little expose of terror in the woods to find an invitation from Iruka to join him and Naruto at Ichiraku's for dinner. Surprisingly not having to worry about cooking tonight had helped take a load off her mind.

For the next hour she forgot all else as the three together laughed, relived some of the Uzumaki's better pranks, and, much to Teuchi and Ayame's amusement and Iruka's great chagrin, the events of the afternoon's class.

Finally Naruto excused himself to use the washroom and the Ichirakus to fix the next round of ramen, leaving Yuki and Iruka alone. Teacher was quick to pick up on student's discomfort. It was obvious she had something she wished to talk about and he knew from experience the only times she got nervous around him was when she wanted to discuss something less than pleasant.

But Yuki being, well, Yuki, she would not bring up a subject she saw as a monkey wrench in other people's enjoyment. The only way she would talk right now would be if he broached the subject first.

"Something wrong?" Yuki looked up sharply then lowered her eyes again. She knew he knew and there was no point hiding. She had been too obvious for him to miss.

"I ran into Kaoru and his team again today." She said quietly so those in the back wouldn't hear. "I soulgazed him."

A lack of response caused Yuki to glance sharply at her sensei, fully expecting a reprimand for the uncalled for use of her powers. Instead there was a look of lingering sadness in her beloved teacher's eyes. "You're mad at me," she whispered dolefully.

She was shamed further when a gentle hand lightly gripped her shoulder in a comforting squeeze. "What did you see?"

Yuki looked up surprised but didn't hesitate to say. "He's… not really a bad kid. Just spoiled by his life. But there is still hope; he has the potential to become a great asset to the village. If only he would understand the truth about life a bit more."

Iruka nodded and said nothing. The only times Yuki ever used the powers inherited from her wizard father was on rare emergency occasions or when her anger over Naruto's treatment overruled her rationality. At least this time he had gained some valuable information concerning a pupil the other instructors had been hitting their heads against a wall over.

Kaoru's family was one of wealthiest in Konoha; his father was cousin to the duke of the county over from the village. It had been quite surprising when Hiko Shinomori married a ninja of the village, but then the man was known to go his own way even if it meant ignoring social expectations. The problem was the boy, who often enjoyed using his family's standing to excuse his behavior which then became a delicate subject few were willing to deal with.

"They take another shot at Naruto again?" Yuki slunk deeper into the stool if that were at all possible. The only two people she hated to disappoint and she had blown it spectacularly yet _again_. Naruto would be horrified that his ne-san had subjected herself to having one more person's soul burned on her mind to scare them off for his sake and Iruka was disappointed that she had probably scarred another idiot with her temper.

"Sorry," she mumbled, suddenly finding the dregs at the bottom of her bowls unusually interesting.

Iruka sighed. It was always a challenge dealing with these two for some reason. Maybe because they reminded him so much of himself yet at the same time they were more. They didn't care that life kicked them down time and time again. Because they just got right back up and used the experience to become stronger. It had taken him years to learn this whereas they seemed to have the resilience programmed right into their genes.

"You got angry," he said calmly. He knew about Kaoru hitting on Yuki from the one time she'd broken her normal silence long enough to ask him how one dealt with such things. "I probably would to. It wasn't the best solution but you're learning." He smiled at her, "don't beat yourself up over it.

"After all, who knows what you're gonna go up against in this life. If you're gonna let something like this get you down then you ain't the Yuki Uzumaki I know who would kick the whole world's butt and throw on an uppercut for good measure for messing with her."

Yuki finally relaxed. He wasn't angry, she was always afraid to use her power after her gaze with him. It had been an accident since it was right after she discovered her ability and had completely forgotten about it. He had found it difficult to look her in the eye for the following two weeks. But gradually he had come to once again accept it as a part of his strange yet special charges' quirks.

The effort it must have cost had furthered her innate desire to not disappoint him in any way possible. But it seemed she could never help that small temptation to make the bastards suffer for their hatred against the innocent boy who had given more than they would ever comprehend to save them.

"Leave it alone Yuki," Iruka rubbed her shoulder affectionately. "Something tells me the brat deserved it. Am I right?"

"Weeeeell…"

"Two orders of pork ramen. I _must_ say I have no _idea_ where you two have room to put it all." Teuchi laughed. Naruto, who had chosen that moment to return, made a comment about being a camel who had to store it away whenever he had a chance to get it. This sent them all into another round of hearty laughs.

Yuki paused just over her first mouthful to look at Iruka. The young chunin smiled and gave her thumbs up over the bobbing head between them. "Better eat before it gets cold." His way of saying 'its okay, we're cool'.

Finally eased of her burden, Yuki dove in and enjoyed the rest of the evening to it's fullest. Cuz after tomorrow, gods knew what might come. But for now she was content to bask in these simple joys.

**XXXXXXXXXX**

The sound of the front door sliding open distracted Yuki from brushing out her hair long enough to see a pillow touting Naruto enter her apartment.

"Don't feel like sleeping either?" she smiled gently.

"Uh, uh." Naruto shook his head and crawled under the covers of her bed. Yuki smiled as she watched her brother thump his pillow into shape next too hers then sit up to hug his knees while he waited for her to finish.

Pulling her hair into a bobble at the base of her neck, she made sure the door was locked and the lights out before she joined him under the blankets. It was a small ritual of theirs, whichever apartment they spent their evenings in was the one they fell asleep in. If they had a late night with no before-bed activates then Naruto would lug his pillow over and crash in her room.

Naruto waited patiently as she got comfy before snuggling up to use her as a cuddle toy/pillow. She didn't mind. Actually the truth was the closeness was one of her favorite times of day, when she could physically feel him completely relaxed, putting all his trust solely in her. It humbled and warmed her that, after all he had seen her do, his faith in her to care for him was still as unshakable as ever.

Unthinkingly she let that happiness manifest in a lullaby her foster father had always sung to his children every night.

"Goodnight, my angel  
Time to close your eyes  
And save these questions for another day  
I think I know what you've been asking me  
I think you know what I've been trying to say  
I promised I would never leave you  
And you should always know  
Wherever you may go  
No matter where you are  
I never will be far away."

Naruto relaxed as his breathing evened out to match the beat of the vein in her neck the warm exhales tickled.

"Goodnight, my angel  
Now it's time to sleep  
And still so many things I want to say."

She still hadn't told him so much. Things he had a right to know. Why did the world have to be so unfair to one so pure?

"….if you sing this lullaby  
Then in your heart  
There will always be a part of me."

Gently she pressed a kiss to the messy spikes, their owner now far too gone to complain any more. With heavy emotion she softly sang the last stanza.

"Someday we'll all be gone  
But lullabies go on and on...  
They never die  
That's how you  
And I  
Will be…." Her heart finally lightened, Yuki closed her own ayes and joined her precious bundle of joy in the land of dreams.

* * *

 

 **(1)** Little brother.

 **(2)** Big sister

 **(3)** Are you Ok?

 **(4)** Do you want to hold it?

 **(5)** Go ahead, take it.

 **(6)** It's Ok.

**In case you are wondering the song is 'Lullaby (Goodnight My Angel)' by Billy Joel, all credit goes to him.**


	3. Chapter II: Family Affairs (part one)

_Adrenalin pumped hard and fast through her veins, bringing a sensation somewhere between euphoric and bestial primitiveness. Cries rang over the plain and echoed on the wind from other battle sites. The scent of blood wafted heavily on a breeze, metallic and sweet in her mouth, filling her nose like a heady liquor, urging the beast locked away to new highs of excitement it had not witnessed in far too long for its liking._

**_Kill, kill, KILL!_ ** _Itshrieked and reared in her mind, in her life flow. **Kill the varmints. They are naught but frivolous shades marring the farce of this existence. Let me out and we will finish this once and for all.**_

_As always she allowed the iron fist of years of induced control snag the leash on her more base instincts._

_She could stop this battle, yes. But at what price if she let it out? The last time she did was a nightmare she had no intention of aggravating the memory of._

_Still the hatred of this…creature before her scrapped at the barriers of her subconscious._

**_You can take just him out, no one will blame you…._ **

**_There are innocent people out there…_ **

**_This is a WAR! Sacrifices are required if there is to be an end to this madness._ **

**_I will not allow the chance of others getting hurt!_ **

**_In war many are hurt, they will understand the loss of a few to save the masses. Pathetic and undeserving as they are…_ **

**_Bitch, don't even think…_ **

Darkness swam across unseeing eyes. Soft, ragged pants echoed in silence contained.

Slowly, with each breath, the visages of past conflict ebbed to the dark in the storage space behind her walls of consciousness. Throwing off the covers she slipped like a wraith between the bed drapes. The lack of light did nothing to hinder her, memory wasn't even in requirement; instead, experience honed eyes guided her footsteps to the private bathroom that was a benefit of the Prefect dorm room.

The cool water of the shower flowed like healing balm over her sweat coated skin. Slowly tense muscles relaxed and order was restored to her emotions. That done she returned to the room and grabbed fresh clothes, the previous ones too damp to be comfortable. She should be getting her sleep but decided on a different action than getting back in bed, her body was too pumped up to relax right now.

 _Guess there's no other way about it_ …

Soft crackles filtered through the haze of sleep as he slowly rose through the zones of consciousness until he reached 'awake'. Immediately he registered the change that had taken place sine he first closed his eyes. He stopped having roommates last year so the slightest variation to the immediate area, he found to some great annoyance, alerted him right away.

 _This job is getting me too paranoid._ Grumbling mentally he quietly pulled back a corner of the bed drape. Sure enough, firelight danced around the room, amazingly making the originally stark walls seem almost cozy.

 _Did she go out?_ She couldn't be working; he knew she'd already completed all their assignments in an hour, as usual, with the help of those clones of hers. Hoping to gather further information, he got out of bed and glanced around the foot of her's to the small sitting area.

His roommate sate curled up on a couch, a glass of something in one hand and the other moving over one of those electronic data tablet things in her lap.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" Knowing she'd probably been aware the second he came to, he decided to play it casual and slunk around to stand behind her.

"What are you doing?"

"Reminiscing." She took a healthy gulp of her drink as she passed her hand over the screen, moving on to the next picture in the file.

"When were these taken?" He leaned over as much as his dignity allowed and squinted, try to get a better look.

"Mostly my time as Team 7." She glanced up so suddenly he had to force himself not to backpedal in an attempt to escape the close proximity. "Wanna see?"

Trying to appear nonchalant he shrugged and held out his hand. 'What are you drinking?" A rhetorical question, from the color it was obviously her favorite hard liquor, tequila straight with a dash of lime on ice.

She shrugged off the question with her own. "Want some?"

He nodded. Since the beginning of this job he'd discovered an increasing urge to bury his emotions under the numbing bliss of alcohol and she was more than happy to help in that department.

Taking the glass and tablet, he regarded the slim black object with slight distain before masking his opinions with a sip of his drink. Still unaccustomed to something so strong, his mouth and throat burned under the strength of the liquor but he ignored it and focused on the picture before him.

It was the same one she had sitting on her desk. In it four children grouped around a tall, silver haired man with his lower face concealed beneath a plan blue mask and only visible eye showing amusement at his charges' antics. One pink haired girl flashing a bright, shy smile, a darker haired girl grinned with casual amusement beside her.

Two boys flanked them. The one with hair like the backend of a black duck looking to the side like this was the lamest thing he had ever been subject to while the other, blond, had his arms crossed and glared his irritation at the former.

As always, despite the portrayed bravado he couldn't help noticing how painfully young they were.

Forcing another mechanical sip he lowered himself into the cushions of the couch next to the one she was on. The seats weren't here originally but she had insisted on them the day after arriving. Claiming if she had to deal with a load of whiny, snot-nosed brats all day she could at least be entitled to a few luxuries after hours.

Setting the glass aside he flicked through several more pictures, mostly of her and the blond boy, occasionally featuring others. After about a minute he came to one that was a group shot of maybe thirty or so children.

"What's this?" he asked casually. Perhaps there was something interesting in here after all.

Rising up from her partially reclined position, she saw what he was looking at and sank back. "Graduation day."

"For what?"

"Ninja academy."

His attention was immediately peaked. Carefully he studied each face and counted the number of students to teachers. After a bit he frowned. "Your brother isn't in here."

"Mmmmh?" she cracked an eye and regarded him for a second while her brain processed the question. "Oh, yeah, that's because he didn't graduate with the class."

"But I thought you said you two graduated the same year."

She waved a hand idly. "He wasn't originally supposed to cuz he failed the test that day."

Sensing a story here he perked up. "So what happened?" Over the last few months he'd discovered she didn't mind talking about herself too much, just so long as you avoided certain subjects like the plague.

Feeling bored and in a reminiscent mood she took her feet off the table where they had been resting and stuck them up on the couch seat instead.

"Well, it's a rather interesting situation. See we were on the last part off the test…."

**...**

"Stop fidgeting will you." Yuki smacked at the hands wriggling and twisting the signs needed to shape chakra into jutsus. "You'll be fine."

Naruto glared and jabbed a finger at her nose. "That's easy for you to say. You matched Sasuke in everything up to this point. Even if you fail this next bit you can still graduate." Not true, the clone jutsu was a required pass, but he was right about the first part. She was running neck and neck with Sasuke for the place of this year's No.1 student. Even now she could feel the glares of what remained of his fanbase in the room, she was almost tempted to casually voice the idea of employing sexy jutsu to give Sasuke a consolidating kiss after she won. A restrained snicker bubbled at her mental image of the guaranteed ensuing fallout

"Daaaaaaw, where is Iruka Sensei?" I wanna pass this last part so I can wear a Leaf headband." Naruto sulked and dropped his chin in his hand.

Yuki could sympathize. They had been waiting almost an hour. From past experience she knew it could potentially be another thirty minutes before they were called up at random. And that cheerful little voice in the middle of her brain was advocating the urge to use her powers to zap random annoying children in the room. Hey, at least it would take all their minds off the final examination.

For this last part they would be required to perform the clone jutsu. She wasn't nervous for herself; she had that one down only two days after learning it. What was denting a lovely panic attack into her gut was Naruto. The boy as of yet had no prayer of squeezing out even a single convincing copy of himself.

"Uzumaki Naruto!"

They both jumped at the announcement, where had the time gone?

"Good luck." Yuki flashed Naruto a grin as he bounced towards the door.

Naruto laughed and waved at her as he followed Iruka to the examination room.

Once he was gone, she sat back in her chair, trying to give the appearance of being completely relaxed, but in truth all the fingers of both hands were crossed under the table.

"Stupid brat." Yuki ignored the whispered jab from across the room, "I don't know why they're still keeping him around."

"Yeah, he's so hopeless. I don't see shy they haven't kicked him out already." They weren't bothering to whisper now.

Yuki's hands clenched into fists, _come on, breath. You're better than this._

"They only let him stay because they want his sister." Now the girls were joining in. The insults to her were not a problem; most of the girls hated her for her capability to kick their tiny minds' deity in the teeth with cheerful contempt, which in their eyes was a crime against creation. The look on Sasuke's face when she finally managed it had been priceless. But the insinuation that she was the only reason Naruto was still around?

Yuki had heard enough, this once she broke her rule of general passiveness in the classroom. If this _was_ her last day here she was going to leave them something to remember her by.

Closing her eyes she reached down inside herself to a spot just in the center of her chest just above her stomach.

Magic. It was a potent substance more lethal than chakra. While the later had to be summoned and combined, depending entirely on the will of the user, the former was a natural ability she had been born with at her fingertips. And unlike chakra, it was destructive all on its own just by being.

Normally a wizard would have to make a constant conscious effort to contain the power flowing within them. Yuki, however, was a ninja. Extreme training to produce and form chakra had also taught her control over her inherent power. Most of the time it stayed stuck in a nice little centre at the core of her person, but now she called it out.

A sudden blast of killing intent, one tangible both mentally and physically, flooded the room; the effects instantly visible.

Students screamed as wisps of the chilly, hateful aura wrapped unforgiving fingers around their tender minds. Overhead the lights flickered for several second before, as if by some unseen signal, shattering simultaneously. Yuki sat quietly grinning in the aftermath of panicking students. _Let's_ _see them figure out who pulled that._

Lucky for them this was the extent of what she could push with it. The reason being A: she had no idea how to properly mold or wield the energy, B: she had been forbidden by the Third to allow her powers out in case someone was still looking for her. This was probably why she was also exceptional at chakra masking.

She wondered if she should tell them the secret behind successes like her and Sasuke. That one special ingredient which pushed people like them to achieve heights most thought insane and impossible.

Nah, they would find out soon enough. No reason to spoil their happy little bubbles unnecessarily premature. The looks on their faces would be that much sweeter when they finally discovered what was out there. And it's not like they would listen to her anyways, even if she tried.

Having had enough of the biased atmosphere, Yuki slipped out to wait in the hallway. The individual exam only took a couple of minutes. She remembered it from the year before. Make the clones, then if you succeeded, receive a forehead protector with the village's insignia and go wait in the main auditorium for the graduation speech. Glancing at her watch she saw that almost three minutes had passed since Naruto was called.

 _Please let him pass. Please, please, pleeeeeeeeeassssssssse._ She hadn't prayed since her Nana made her adopted parents send their children to Sunday school but she sure as heck was now. Never hurt in case someone might just be listening.

The exam room door sliding open broke her line of thought.

Yuki didn't have to look up to know the results. The abject silence spoke for itself.

Pretending she hadn't noticed she closed her eyes and imitated reviewing the hand signs. She did not want to see that tiny moment when the mask would slip and, for the briefest second, her brother's disappointment would be shown.

It was easier for Naruto to think she believed that he was fine than to know his sorrow at failing raked grooves through her chest. So she turned away, gave him time to find some niche in his mind where he could still smile at the world and say 'there's always next year'. It was a beautiful lie.

People thought he was crazy and bad mannered. They never connected those idiotic laughs with the pain tearing at him beneath the surface, the pranks as his way of soothing away the tears that could not be shown for fear of more ridicule at his simple desire for even just one tiny acknowledgment that he _existed_ , that he was worth something to this world as more than just an unwanted nuisance.

But she knew it hurt him more to think that she hurt because he did. So she faked, faked it till she could almost believe it, that he was Ok and they would get through it as always.

"Hey Yuki." Plastering on a lopsided grin she turned to his too-bright expression, rigged up for the sake of their sensei who appeared in the door behind him.

"So did you put enough sexy clones for the teachers' graduation bash?" The look on Iruka's face turned the smile relatively genuine as he scowled darkly at the prospect of such an idea.

Not giving the two time to plot out any strategy that might be stewing up in their demented brains, he calmly glanced at his clipboard and said, "Uzumaki Yuki."

"Knock'em dead Nee-san." Naruto gave her his thumbs-up and headed for the exit.

Yuki sighed. There was no getting around it. Naruto would stay behind while she went on to become Genin.

_Well there is one way…_

"NO!" Yuki grit quietly between teeth as she walked to stand before Iruka and Mizuki sensei. She would not cheat on the test.

But now that that door had been opened, it refused to shut. _Are you really going to just leave him behind?_

Oh Arianna curse her sibling side, why did she have to get all noble _now_?

Because no matter what reasons her rational mind spouted there was no way she was leaving Naruto behind. Period!

"Begin."

The order caught her off guard so it was not such a stretch to pretend to fumble and slip her fingers out of place. "Clone Jutsu."

Chakra clouds cleared to reveal two clones. One had a large chunk of its hair missing while the second had an abnormally large nose.

"Fuck!" Iruka raised one nonchalant eyebrow at her outburst. Mizuki looked her with a small amount of something in his eyes. Not sympathy, no, but it made her intuition buzz on the wrong side for some odd reason.

"You have failed the test," Mizuki intoned. "You can not graduate this year. I'm sorry.

Yuki nodded her understanding. It was disappointing to say the least. Sasuke was going to gloat over this for, well, forever. Still it was oddly satisfying. Screw the gutless Uchiha worm; she had done the right thing in staying back with Naruto.

"No she has not."

Two puzzled heads turned to the dark haired sensei.

"Iruka," Mizuki admonished, "her clones were flawed. You said it yourself just now. Unless she can pass the test she cannot become a ninja."

Iruka leaned back and folded his arms. "That was for Naruto. It would have been wrong to let him graduate on a sympathetic whim. This is Yuki. We both know she is more than capable of passing this test.

"Once more Yuki," he ordered, sitting back up. "And this time, if you attempt to fail again, I will be forced to have you spar with Sasuke before the entire graduating class until you can convince me your skills have magically managed to slip since last night."

She was busted. Yuki was surprised at the sudden urge to bend Iruka over and boot him in the backside with enough force to send him to the next country.

Damn it! If he was so intuitive of her purposeful slip up then why couldn't he apply that same ability to why she was doing it? And what was that about not letting Naruto graduate on a whim? She'd have to ask her brother later.

Naruto sat saddle style on the swing under the large tree in front of the academy. He watched as students and their families spilled out the front doors. Talking and laughing with the new graduates, other children who had passed their tests.

He had sat patiently through the Hokage's speech to the graduates, then the obligatory class photo shoot. But when they called Yuki and Sasuke back for individual pictures for the record books it became too much.

Slipping out was no problem since everyone's attention was on the two topmost students of this year. Even the normal predisposition towards Yuki was being forgotten as those in attendance paid special attention, always on the lookout for a new star to try latching on to in hopes of catching some of the fallout of their success. Without him by her side others had begun to see her in a new light.

He had been so wrapped up in his misery he missed the questing search his Ane-san cast around in hopes of pulling him up with her so she could shed light on his hand in her success.

Now he sat miserable and alone, watching his fellow classmates being congratulated by their parents, siblings, and friends. Even lazy Shikamaru and Choji who played hooky almost as often as he did managed to graduate.

He was the only one to fail.

Wrapped up in his self misery he didn't notice the silver haired man till he was right beside him.

Yuki walked quickly as she could without giving the appearance of being in a hurry. She had finally managed to escape the suffocating cluster of well wishers with their fake smiles and personal agendas.

She knows Naruto will have waited for her and exactly where to find him. She knows the shadow that will be there blocking her little ray of sunshine. She will not be able to move it, the only way clouds ever go is to let them rain out, but she is going to stand in that rain until it is gone, when the light is back in his eyes in the understanding that needs not words to express her pride for him, failures and all.

But when she gets to the tree he is not there, the swing glaringly unoccupied. _Did he think I would be mad at him for not passing?_ Suddenly the emptiness became strikingly ominous.

No, he would never be so stupid as to believe she held so little value in him.

"I hope that teacher is telling him to give up and leave the academy."

 _What!?_ Yuki bit down on the snarl curling in her gut at the spite in the tone and instead focused on the content.

"What are they thinking? Letting _filth_ like that in the academy, its disgraceful I tell you."

"He should be locked up and the key thrown away. Better yet, why don't they just kill him, it would be so much easier. Little monster."

Cold rage colored the world red as Yuki turned very slowly and zeroed in on the speakers. A small gaggle of mothers who just minutes before had been gushing about how they hoped their children would be teamed with her and learn from her success.

"Care to say that again?"

Unconditional silence reigned as a killing aura washed the air with barely restrained fury. Haughty sneers turned to blank terror as orbs burning blood fixated and held them in that awful power.

She momentarily allowed the idea of souldgazing them to flit across the front of her mind but then decided they weren't worth the trouble. She had no idea what was in there, it was a place she really rather preferred not to go herself and she already knew what she'd see in their souls. For now a small blast of energy exhaled on the wind would suffice to serve as warning.

But what did they mean by 'that teacher'? Most teachers ignored Naruto with the exception of Iruka and occasionally Mizuki, Asuma, and Kurinia sensei, all of whom had only just gotten out of the ceremony like everyone else.

"Um, Yuki-sama."

"Yes Hinata-chan." She didn't even have to look to see who spoke. Only the Hyugga girl used that annoyingly shy, hesitant tone which for some reason was fraying on her already shortened fuse even more.

"Um, if you are looking for Naruto-kun he left with Mizuki sensei a little bit before you came out." Yuki frowned. That was odd; Mizuki normally did not pay special attention to individual students. But perhaps with Naruto being the only one left behind this year he had taken pity on the boy for a change.

Looking around for Iruka she spotted him busy talking with the Hokage. Since she had no intention of getting a bucket of pity from the old man she decided to wait on talking to her sensei. Thanking Hinata, she turned her back on the crowd laughing in celebration. Strangely, but maybe not so surprising, she was too depressed to rejoice over her success.

Even the knowledge that Sasuke was unceasingly glaring holes in her retreating back brought no satisfaction. There were many things she would have gladly given up for Naruto to have been standing with her in the graduating class, sporting the leaf headband. But if whishes were fishes…. well, what was done was done and nothing would change that.

Since it was most likely whatever Mizuki had planned would probably take a while, Yuki decided to take this chance to make her preparations for the evening while her brother was occupied by the teacher.

No one noticed the lone girl quietly slip away, leaving the cheering crowd behind. Even those who had no parents still had extended family or guardians in the village that had come to congratulate them. No one cared; even her friends were all too busy celebrating to discern the disheartened look she now no longer bothered to hide.

Not that Yuki wanted them too. Truth be told, she was happier being left to stew in her own brain juices for now.

A few streets over from Ichiraku's was the Yoshimoto family restaurant, of which Yuki was the provider for the main specialty- slow roasted pork. A few years back she'd discovered the forest just over the first line of hills was infested with wild pigs. With Teuchi's help she'd managed to strike a bargain with the head of Yoshimoto's, for every catch she brought in she got a portion of the delicious delicacy.

Two days earlier she'd managed to haul in a brace of four good-sized porkers and their considerably larger mother and asked for her share to be put on hold for today. Originally it was intended to celebrate Naruto and her graduation, but now it looked like the special food would be going towards cheering Naruto up since it was his favorite after Ichiraku's, something for which she currently did not have the cash to spend on.

Reaching the building, she went around to the back and knocked on the screen door there. "Yuki-chan, welcome," hitching up another reasonably sized smile to match the greeting called, Yuki pushed through the door and into the aroma drenched kitchen within.

"Good afternoon Ryo-san." Yuki felt the smile become a bit more authentic as she took in the familiarity of the large room. The warmth of the place ran deeper than the heat of the cooking fires. This was a place for family and it reflected in every aspect of the way the place was set up; each time she came here she couldn't help feeling not a bit nostalgic as she remembered her own family, now cold and most likely buried under six standard issue feet of dirt.

"Your food will be ready soon. Would you like a cup of tea while you wait?" This time the small grin Yuki offered with her acceptance was genuine and Ryo replied in kind.

Originally the eldest of the Yamamoto sons had been just as shocked as the rest of his family when their father accepted Teuchi's advice and hired the girl. He, like most of his generation, had steered clear of the Uzumaki pair. Not that his parents had been particularly prejudiced against the foreign girl who had shockingly adopted the village pariah, but rather it was the normal practice so he and his siblings went with the flow.

It had taken a few months for most of them to come out of their shells; the younger ones being not quite as inhibited and soon warming up to the girl. Who, it turned out, sported quite a bubbly-rather childish- personality beneath that cool exterior she often presented to the masses. Now he almost thought of her as the-girl-next-door, if not a little sister.

Yuki, for her part, had only really listened to Teuchi's suggestion because it meant something other than ramen that tasted like it had been cooked by someone who had a better idea of what they were doing. Besides which, it cut back on her own need to cook for a couple of days in the week.

The hunting was not a problem. She'd begun doing it not long after learning how to properly aim a weapon, a talent that had, interestingly, not taken long to develop. Survival was more important than cuddling cute, fluffy bunnies. She had already been supplying the meat to Ichiraku's for several months to pay for Naruto's addiction to the shop's pork ramen special when the kindhearted shopkeeper suggested the possibility of variety for her meal planning.

Rather it was getting back in the swing of normal human contact that was the awkward bit. She'd had no problem getting along with the friendly Naruto, Iruka, Shikamaru, and Choji. But working around an unfamiliar family, half of which regarded her with open suspicion? That had been a bit tougher for the nine-year-old. Luckily for her…

"Yuki-chan!" the overly affectionate tone boomed, "how are you?" Rather than startling the girl as the suddenness would most people, the large voice that preceded its owner's heavy footfalls relaxed her even further.

Yamamoto Taiyo, head of the Yamamoto family, chuckled as he observed the now brilliantly grinning girl and placed two large bags on the table before her. "About time you got here. The food was getting cold."

Yuki smirked at the jib and didn't bother retorting, rather opting to give into her stomach's response to the heavenly aromas seeping out. Grinning mischievously she cracked open the top box in the nearest bag and happily popped a morsel of the ambrosia into her mouth. Just managing not to drool as she chewed, Yuki took another look at the bags and suddenly frowned.

"I didn't think those pigs where _this_ big."

"Oh," Taiyo grinned and took a seat across from her while Ryo hurried to fetch a third tea cup, "not all of those are pork. There are some other dishes in there for you and your brother and no," he held up his hand to forestall any possible argument, "you are not allowed to protest. It is only thanks to you that business has been so good these past years."

It was an honest fact. No one else could boast of having a ninja for a supplier. And it was thanks to Yuki that the Yamamoto restaurant was able offer the delicacy on such a regular basis at the prices it did. "Think of it as a treat for a job well done on the test. You did pass right?"

The girl smirked at the joking query. "Top of the class with the Uchiha kid." Despite the sliver of self hatred for it, Yuki couldn't help the smile claiming several more inches on her face at the round of applause from Taiyo and his son.

"Well done, oh well done Yuki," Taiyo reached over to pat her fondly on the shoulder. "I never doubted you for a second. And Naruto?" The immediately crestfallen look was all the answer he needed.

It still surprised the man how much the two young ninja trainees had changed, not only his, but his entire family's opinions of them, to the point they all now cared so much the point of being concerned about the duo's grades and individual successes as if they had been their own to start with.

Although he was generally not one to judge by simple hearsay alone, Taiyo was ashamed to admit at the beginning he had been more than a little apprehensive about working with the girl who had been willing to be known as siding with the Jinchuriki. Although his family had been lucky in not suffering major damage or loss during the Kyuubi attack, he had none the less allowed himself to be caught up in the wave of ill feelings aimed at the blameless child whose life had been sacrificed for the sake of retaining the peace of the power balance between the nations controlling tailed beasts.

Originally he had only listened to Teuchi's suggestion because it meant a cheap, hopefully reliable source of meat for his business. But as the months passed, he had come to respect the determined, hard working spirit of the young academy student who seem to preserver with a smile no matter what was thrown her way. Finally he had been forced to take a step back and seriously reconsider the way he had been treating the girl as nothing more than a tolerable business acquaintance and really think about where she was coming from.

Upon doing so, he was shocked and saddened at how easily he had allowed his views to be swayed by the opinions of others. Determined to not tolerate such unmerited ill will in his heart again, he'd resolved to attempt to rectify his actions, starting with the simple basics of a friend who cared about what happened with the two.

Surprisingly, it was Yuki who had taken more persuading to convince his apology was for real. Naruto, who tagged along on occasion for the pickups, had been a warm, bubbling fountain of ever willing forgiveness once he realized the man's sincerity and played a large role in convincing his sister of its genuineness. Once that had been accomplished it never ceased to amaze the man that he or anyone could think ill of the two. Now they were almost like extended family, and hearing of Yuki's triumph and Naruto's failure brought both pride and sadness to his heart.

"Don't worry," he offered an encouraging smile, "there's next year and we all know there's nothing Naruto lets get him down for long that he doesn't' manage to beat with sheer will if nothing else." Yuki offered a grateful smile for the show of simple faith and care that was in such short supply these days.

"Yes, what did you bribe Umino sensei into passing you with, you little rascal."

Taiyo swatted his son upside the head. "Everyone knows the Uzumakis would more likely let themselves be kidnapped and tied to a tree with threat of imminent torture and death then cheat." Turning his attention back to the girl Yuki was not a little surprised at the grin warm with pride now splitting his face. "Congratulations Yuki-chan, you worked so hard for this."

Sulky from being reprimanded in front of the girl, Ryo couldn't resist one more jab. "At least you didn't blow up half the academy while you were at it."

Smiling sweetly, Yuki replied in kind. "Well, I didn't torch the teachers but I did have to toss the Uchiha up a tree in the physical exam."

"Seriously?!" Yuki snickered impishly at the expressions of surprise on the faces before her. The snickers increased to include happy squirming as she recounted how she'd beaten Mr.-emo-with-the-weird-hairstyle in the taijutsu exam. The only reason Sasuke was on equal standing with her at the end was because Naruto slipped in the survival part of the tests which had been a two man team relay-race to carry a scroll through a trap infested wood.

"Number one next to the Uchiha, that is quite a feat." Taiyo leaned back as his smile got bigger, if that was at all possible.

Yuki smiled and her wriggles of joy turned to those of embarrassment as a rare blush covered her cheeks. The genuine pride rolling off Taiyo reminded her of her own father- the adopted one, she wasn't sure how Harry Dresden would have felt but she liked to believe he'd have been just as overjoyed. Somehow she was managing to alternately feel immensely happy and humbled and embarrassed. It was probably what she missed most about her family. Speaking of which…

"Yamamoto-sama, may I ask a question please?"

Taiyo looked surprised at the suddenly formal manner of address, "of course." The slight fidget that started in Yuki's hand informed him it was something important.

"Everyone goes on about how great the Uchiha clan was but it's said they were eliminated by one of their own and the guy was never caught. Why is that?" Yuki was unsurprised by the startled look on the faces before her. She knew it was mostly public knowledge, but her being an Uzumaki no one was willing to talk to her and there had been a frustrating lack of information the one time she tried searching the public records in hopes of an explanation for Sasuke's attitude. "Does it have anything to do with why Sasuke is always such a compulsive crank or is that just the way he's always been?"

Taiyo and Ryo both traded a glance which Yuki couldn't quite read. Apprehension mostly, but was that…fear mixed in?

Sighing, Taiyo leaned back and scratched his head in an awkward motion. "Of course, I sometimes forget you weren't born here and it happened before you came so you wouldn't know."

Taking a fortifying sip of tea, Taiyo began his sad tale. "The Uchiha have always been a proud clan, no question there. It's was something of a label that they prized power above all else, even family. So it is no surprised they were often thought of as cold.

"Of course that does not mean they were all heartless. I still remember Sasuke's mother, Mikoto, a lovely, kind woman who always had a smile for those she met on the street. In fact, it may surprise you that Sasuke originally used to resemble her in that manner." Yuki held back a snort the mental image of a certain Uchiha smiling brought. She wouldn't judge till she knew the truth.

"All that changed after… _that_ night." Yuki didn't even bat an eye at the terror underlining Taiyo's voice. She had a pretty good idea what a massacre looked like; she'd had a front row seat the better part of a week for the butchering class from Hell preceding one of history's most epic and unknown battles which culminated in the complete eradication of the Red Court of Vampires. But not before…

No!

Slamming the doors on that part of her life she was glad she'd grown proficient over the years at keeping her features totally bland. She had no intention of giving anyone else leverage to pry into that corner of her mind.

"What happened?" the harsh tone causing the question to sound more demand, seemed to shock the others but the sudden sinking feeling in her stomach made her disregard such trivial things. Suddenly she wished she hadn't eaten that pork.

Taiyo's haunted look …it reminded her of the solemn eyes of the kind faced priest who had greeted her upon awakening in that dark underground room beneath the church. The look that cemented it all for her; this was no nightmare for loving parents to sooth away with kisses and hot cocoa. Hell, any parent whose kid could dream something like would probably be seeking professional help, unless they had and the Vatican was where they ended up.

Still…something was off about the way Taiyo spoke. "If it had been anyone else… anyone at all… I might have found it possible to believe at the time…but…" here he stopped and took another sip of his tea. Yuki did not miss the way the hand he used to raise the cup shook ever so slightly.

"Who was it?" she just knew she was going to absolutely _hate_ the answer but she had to understand.

Her tone caused Taiyo to unexpectedly flinch and he began coughing on the sip he'd just taken. Ryo grimaced and laid a hand on his father's arm as it to steady him before taking a deep breath to give an answer.

"Uchiha Itachi."

Had Yuki known then that the owner of said name would come to be a domineering factor in her life for years after she would have gotten up and left without a backwards glance; but often how little we know that something as simple as a few syllables can greatly change one's life path.

"Who was he?"

"He was the eldest son of the head of the clan- Uchiha Fugaku."

"He was…the heir?" Suddenly the name sounded almost familiar for some reason, setting off a bell concert in the back of her head. But for the love of all things unholy she could not bring up anything to identify it.

"And he killed…everyone…" The people he had known, grown up with, been raised to protect and lead…loved? And he killed them all in a single night without so much as a backwards glance. What the hell happened to set off someone like that?

Grim frowns and nods were her only answer.

"How…why…"

"Itachi was said to be a genius. Graduating the academy in only a year at age seven, chunin at ten, there are even rumors he joined the ANBU for a time. Although I wouldn't be surprised, war can do many things to people and the Uchiha were well known for their strict training."

 _And as clan heir he would have been under enormous pressure to exceed above and beyond the norm._ Explained why Konoha's finest had yet to catch the village's No.2 most wanted criminal -she guessed that was his position since the 1st was some weird, pale looking creep in the Bingo book she'd stolen- but that was not of importance right now. "So you're saying…he snapped?" It was not an unheard of occurrence given the pressure ninja were often under and at that age... but on such a large scale? Something truly epically fucked up must have happened to the guy.

"It would seem so. It is the only explanation that seems to have any valid footing. Though of course there are rumors."

Of course there were. There always were; though that was not her concern at the moment. "So this Itachi guy snaps, kills his entire clan, then up and disappears, leaving Sasuke to stew in some lovely plans for revenge." Yippee, Kami could this lovely twisted existence get any more fucking fun?

"Yuki, don't you know?" No! Obviously she did not know whatever it was she really ought to be aware of or she wouldn't be asking. "Itachi is Sasuke's older brother. He was just thirteen."

O-kay, apparently there really was another hole in the how-many-sub-layers-was-it-now basement of life's lowest point after all.

Not trusting herself to speak Yuki took a sip of tea and decided it didn't matter if her face showed she was absorbing the information but she was careful not to let on more. The answer had knocked her for a loop but she wasn't that at a loss as to show the emotions bubbling beneath the surface. Only one person was absolutely privy to her minds inner workings and he was currently stewing in a broth of his own self pity.

Speaking of which… "Thank you Taiyo-sama, Ryo-kun. You have given me a lot to think about. I am sorry for taking so much time." After quick reassurances she had been no bother and the customary farewell niceties, Yuki exited as quickly as possible.

"That girl will go a long way. She's smart enough to look at both sides before making a final judgment and…"

"Ryo! Do not speak so lightly of things you do not understand!"

"Okasan?" Ryo's question caught in his throat as he saw his father's frown.

"Ryo, did you see her eyes when I told her Sasuke's connection in his family's slaughter?"

Ryo gulped, "wha…what do you mean by it?"

Taiyo turned back to his kitchen with a sigh. His young son still had so much to learn. "That look," subconsciously he clenched a fistful of apron, "it was the same as… _him_."

….

Yuki was not marching along like she was pissed at the world. No she was simply too worked up to walk in a quite, orderly fashion and was thus slamming her regulation ninja sandal-boots into the pavement like it was all the sandy ground's fault.

Dam, why did she have to go open that big mouth of hers? This time curiosity didn't kill the cat, it cracked its skull open and dumped its brain in the middle of the path of a fucking bull stampede where the cows wore spiked shoes then drowned it in an acid flood of bloody sentimental tears.

She knew what it was like to lose your entire world in the blink of an eye. Having someone you trusted and believed in dishing out the frosting, well if that weren't the metaphorical cake decoration she didn't know what was.

Great, now she suddenly felt like chicken shit for the damn bastard. Asshole, he always had a way of getting on her nerves, even the sentimental ones.

Wait! She was feeling sorry for him? Aw HELL NAW!

Still, something bothered her about the whole situation.

The perceived genius snapping and going off the reservation she could buy. Killing an entire clan- _his_ entire clan- which was renown throughout the shinobi world as one of the most formidable and dangerous… yeah she could still go with that. But leaving your little brother alive after putting a knife through your own parents…

Somehow something just did not sit right with her about all this.

How was it he could kill one of the most powerful clans in the village but not a single person outside the Uchiha compound had died of unnatural causes that night? According to the report she'd manage to get her hands on no alarms had been raised, how the hell does an entire f***ing town of ninja miss the sounds of people being put to the sword right next door? And why did she get the feeling that it was _not a coincidence_ that the person at the center of it all somehow left his little brother as the only survivor? None of these fit the behavioral patterns of a man who has lost his mind.

Boy- she reminded herself- Itachi was barely a year older than she was now when this happened. By modern standards he was still considered a child- a brilliant one apparently- mature beyond his years, which made it even more incomprehensible. If he was really as good as they said he was…but maybe he…

Ug, _maybe_ she was over thinking again, but you try getting kidnapped by an even more random bunch of psychopaths and tell me you don't get even slightly paranoid. If the whole thing didn't reek like a plague infested river she didn't know what did.

No, to answer her previous question, she was not going to be empathizing with Sasuke. Understand him, maybe, but what? Swap sob stories and cry over how awful their lives were?

GAH! Her fingers started sporadically twitching and clawing with the sudden desire to hunt down and bash the teme's head several feet into the ground, preferably while strangling him. Acting all emo and abandoned. Ha, dude, you had the entire village eating out of your hand with that pathetic line.

Try watching your family being dissected and eaten by a pack of rabid supernatural predators; follow it with a week of human sacrifices, black magic, and- the pièce de résistance- your newfound father killing your favorite aunt who you had just come to know as your birthmother. Wash it all down with a nice big helping of being chucked into a completely foreign environment with absolutely no graspable straws to ground your still spinning sense of reality where the only person who really had time to care was the equivalent of the biblical leper and then maybe, _maybe_ , she might consider a truce.

Of course it still would be a far cry compared to… _Whoa! Ok, **stop**! You are so **not** going there._

She would have gone on with the mental rant when a familiar chakra suddenly registered in the area. "Yuki!" Oh great, yeah he was absolutely the last person she wanted to see right now.

"Iruka sensei," she stopped and bowed politely, not bothering to hide the slightly frosty undertone. "I was actually just planning to look for you."

The young instructor didn't miss the attitude and already had a pretty good idea what was the cause. "Yuki, about what I said earlier, during the test…"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. With the state of his abilities as they are he'd be a liability in the field and it would just be wrong to show favoritism to a student. No need to strain yourself explaining."

"Yuki, I…"

"Forget it sensei. I'll see you later." It was rude and probably not a bit unfair on Iruka, but right now her nerves were shot from the tension of the exam and then there was the whole Uchiha thing to sort through to figure out where she stood on that with Sasuke. To top it all off she still had Naruto to deal with when she got home. Iruka was probably used to dealing with this kind of situation after so many years of failing students; he could forgive her lack of enthusiasm for interaction at the moment.

If she had bothered to meet his eye as she walked past she might have found some understanding there. And maybe the whole fiasco later on could have been avoided.

But for now all she could see in her mind was those happy faces of the other's who had graduated. None a tenth's worth of the child who had sat sadly watching them smile one way for her while in his direction lay hate and spite.

Screw them all, those smiles and laughs would fade in a few months once reality set in for them.

Maybe she should be the one celebrating instead. With Naruto not graduating she got another year to enjoy with her innocent little brother…

 _Ug, what am I thinking!_ Innocent? Maybe. Ignorant? _Pfffffffft_. Fucking Hell, _my brain definitely has it in for me._

What wouldn't she give…?

Anything! She'd give anything to have Naruto by her side. At least there she could protect him.

Now? He'd be spending a year laughed at by with students a year younger and no one she could trust to keep an eye on him.

Could life get any more messed up than this?

* * *

"I take… that back!" Yuki growl/whimpered between pants as she leaped to another branch. She was already using her inhuman speed and she still didn't know if she had any chance of making it in time.

"Oh course! The Fates… _always_ ...think of an even more… screwed over night to… complete an equally… fuck-tastic day.

"Why did I _ever…_ decide to… be such an _idiot_ … and buy that… _stupid_ story?"

* * *

_**Yes, why would you Yuki?** _   
_**Comments please XD.** _


	4. Chapter III: Family Affairs (part two)

**Chapter III: Family Affairs (part two)**

"I take… that back!" Yuki growl/whimpered between pants as she leaped to another branch. She was already using her inhuman speed and she still didn't know if she had any chance of making it in time.

"Oh course! The Fates… _always_ ...think of an even more… screwed over night to… complete an equally… fuck-tastic day.

"Why did I _ever…_ decide to… be such an _idiot_ … and buy that… _stupid_ story?"

**_(the previous afternoon)_ **

Yuki jumped the last building and blinked in surprise at the scene below her. She had anticipated having to go out once again to comb the village looking for a depressed little brother hiding in a corner trying not to cry.

Instead she was coming home to find the brat bouncing around the balcony outside his room like a demented kangaroo while a grinning Mizuki-sensei looked on. "What's up?"

Mizuki turned as she landed and flashed a full smile. "I'll let your brother explain. See you later Naruto." With a wave he jumped to the street below, leaving a bewildered Yuki to calm down a hyper Naruto.

With a sigh she went to set the bags on the kitchen table before returning to drag in an incomprehensibly babbling brother. Naruto laughed when Yuki came out and latched himself around her waist before she could grab his collar. Well that was one way of doing it; at least it was better than tears.

"Alright, alright," Yuki grumbled while prizing off the vice-like-grip so she could breathe again. She vaguely wondered if she should be worried, this was definitely not the same kid she'd tried quietly consolidating less than an hour earlier. Whatever Mizuki had done must have been major to get this kind of reaction and it surprised her. While the silver-haired chunin was not prejudiced like others he never really had bothered to incorporate himself with the students.

Unable to make out a word of the garbled mess assaulting her ears she finally slapped the top of the blond head sharply. "Now, how about we try that again and this time you actually make sense."

"Owwww…" Yuki ignored the pout and collapsed in a chair.

"Ok, what happened this time?"

Naruto giggled and hoped on the table in front of his sister, failing to notice the exhausted air surrounding her since she tended to look like that when she got that 'do I really want to know' attitude. "Mizuki sensei says there's a way for me to still pass and be a ninja!"

"HUH?!" Yuki sat bolt upright. All feelings of fatigue and hazy thoughts blasting out of the skull as her mind focused on the sentence that still hung in the air. Slowly the words began to process and take form and meaning in her mind. "A way to…other than the exam?"

"Yep." The exited beam would have blinded eyes less accustomed to such brightness.

"How is that even possible? Why have we never heard of it, surely Iruka…"

"That's because it's a secret. Mizuki sensei said it's only allowed for those who show potential but whose abilities aren't combatable with the regular test." Yuki went still as she processed this idea. While it did kind of make sense for something like that why would it be Mizuki to tell them and not Iruka? And why would it be such a secret?

Sigh, "Ok, who do you have to kill?"

"Noting so dramatic," the puff of breath that was a barely contained snort did not go unnoticed, "we just have to learn a jutsu from the Scroll of Sealing."

Lips turned downward while eyes narrowed to slits. "And _how_ do you propose we _do_ that? Walk in and ask for it nicely? Everything in there was sealed for a reason you know."

"That's the deal. Getting past the guards is part of the test. It tests one's ingenuity and stealth. I mean we are ninja you know."

Ignoring the cold tentacles wriggling in her gut would have been madness. This couldn't be right. Something was very wrong.

But on the other hand…it did have a smidgen of sense. Once, when trying to encourage Naruto, Iruka mentioned a student he'd taught who, for some reason, had zero ability to employ chakra into ninjutsu. Iruka failed to mention how the boy had been allowed to graduate.

On the one hand, the whole thing reeked. On the other, if this was real and they passed it up because of her reluctance and tendency to over-think things she would never forgive herself. Talk about a rock and worst case scenario.

"Alright," she sighed, "we'll do it. But," she held up a hand to forestall the impending whoop of glee, "we do this on my terms and if I say we quite then that's the end of it. No complaints or whining. Agreed?"

Her reply was a predictable squeal of glee and rib-cracking hug.

She sighed, Mizuki had _so_ better be right about this if he wanted to live to see tomorrow.

To her surprise the night actually went rather smoothly.

Getting past the guards was no problem; Yuki provided a small distraction while Naruto snuck in. Typical males, give a bored sentry something to look at and make it good and they were on hook, line, and sinker. How they were still falling for this she had no idea. Even more amusing was, despite the fact he sucked royally in the practice yard, Naruto in fact was an accomplished sneak that could put the snooty Uchiha to shame in the field.

She was less enthusiastic to hear about the spot where they would be training, but once there she again had to admit it was not a bad location. Even with all her exploring she had never come across the place before.

The complex seal on the scroll stood no chance, a small tap of magic and the entire thing sorted out. Smirking triumphantly the two high-fived and got to work. It would be only a matter of time before they were found out, even though Naruto said he'd knocked the old man out with his sexy jutsu.

"Let's see," Naruto squinted in the glow of the flashlight she held for him, "first one is…Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu…. GAH!" he clutched at his hair in frustration, "not this again."

"Why don't we try finding one that might be more compatible for your abilities?" Yuki suggested. There had been no stipulation for kind or level and she knew complexity was not the only limit for a jutsu's risk factor. Maybe if they could find one which was simply forbidden because of the chakra required?

But each turn of the scroll piled more and more dirt over the hole her stomach had taken up residence in. "Fine, let's just give the first one a try. It's almost the same as clones but with a different hand sign and requires more chakra, which you have plenty of." Naruto gave her a pout with enormous puppy eyes that would have melted anyone less cold than her name suggested.

**_two-and-three-quarts an hours later_ **

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Yuki gave a triumphant 'yes' with a fist pump and turned to see how Naruto's had turned out.

The teachers were handling his training all wrong. The one sure fire way to ensure top results ten out of ten was to apply to her little brother's sense of pride in a challenge. She'd dared him to master the jutsu within five hours while working alongside her and so far it was looking good, much more than Iruka had ever managed in class with even the much simpler regular clones.

After the first hour and a whole lot of trial and error Naruto had managed to produce a fairly decent clone that actually looked alive, if somewhat mutant. From there he'd progressed to about six at a time and even managed to improve on their appearance. They weren't completely exact copies but they looked mostly normal, and best of all they were upright and mobile. Still about two hours to go, this was not only looking plausible but extremely possible.

Feeling smugly pleased with herself, Yuki called for a break and flopped down on the grass beside the scroll. The four-hour nap she'd managed to catch after dinner had given her the required energy but she still felt the dregs of prolonged fatigue. She was most grateful they would have a week off while their teams were decided on. Hopefully the education legislators weren't so gung ho that they'd work through the night to have the chart ready for approval by the next day and that Mizuki had not been lying about this bypass. Naruto had surely made enough progress above and beyond what the regular students had done he at least warranted another shot.

Naruto grabbed one of the canteens and emptied half of it before joining her in the grass. Feeling a sudden spurt of prideful joy, Yuki waited until he caught his breath then rolled over to smother him in a giant koala grip.

Naruto giggled and tried wiggling away but she held firm. Finally he just settled down and snuggled deeper in her arms. Now words were spoken and none need be said. She was proud of him. He wanted nothing more than to prove he could succeed, even without her asking. They both knew what the other was thinking and both knew they knew the other preferred not to talk and break the glow of the moment.

Sadly Yuki knew they had to move if they wanted to win. "Kick Sasuke's ass with these for your retry tomorrow," she mumbled into his spikes.

Naruto grinned at the thought and chirped, "I'm gonna be Hokage one day."

Yuki chuckled, "you know I damn well believe it." Naruto's smile widened against her chest. "But let it go to your head once you do and I'll kick your scrawny ass all over the village." Naruto chuckled then outright shrieked as wicked fingers poked him mercilessly in the ribs until he wiggled away, this time Yuki allowing him his freedom.

"Ha, when I'm Hokage I'll be stronger than you so you'd never catch me!"

Yuki didn't bother to rise, instead making herself more comfortable in the soft grass. "Naruto," she said with her sweetest smile, "I don't know how to break this to you, but the day you're strong enough to escape me will be the day I agree to date Sasuke."

For a moment Naruto looked absolutely horrified by the mental picture of his Ane-san going out and doing _things_ with the Uchiha prick. But then he saw her lips twitch as she had to suppress her laughter at the comical look and he too cracked up. He didn't need to be told, Yuki would kick his ass just for the heck of it even when he did manage to become Hokage, it was the reason she was his big sister after all.

Since she'd already mastered the jutsu Yuki didn't get back up, but rather opted to fold her arms under her head like a pillow and settled in to observe. At this rate Naruto would be finished before dawn. They would go together to return the scroll and finally find out what all the hard work had bought them.

She lay watching for a few minutes as Naruto tried adding more chakra to the jutsu, there was no danger of him running low any time soon. She knew all about the Kitsune hidden in him, had ever since she'd accidentally soulgazed him right after gaining her Sight. The Third had made her swear never to tell Naruto or speak of it ever again; she found it highly unfair.

Naruto was a hero and deserved to know, if only so he could understand the reason for the stigma the villagers placed on him, also something her blood boiled at the unreasonableness of.

It was a fight every time she walked the streets and people looked upon her like the lepers of old. She could understand the hesitance concerning bringing in a foreigner and after some of the things she'd done she might have forgiven a lack of public popularity for herself. But the pure hate and disgust in those cold eyes for the other were like a vicious kick to the gut.

She remembered her time with the vampires. The experience held nothing against what Naruto suffered here. The evil and malice of the undead had been expected, they were monsters that fed on humans and who her father started a war with over her mother who then moved on to all out hunt them. This was entirely different.

Naruto was no monster. He'd been only a baby newly born the same night- didn't make a difference to the villagers. The monster lived on within him and so long as he existed they would never be safe. Fear, Yuki had learned from hard experience, was the fastest way to make a fool of even the best.

The angry thoughts swarmed in her head like a nest of hornets till Yuki was forced to move or her anger would begin eating away again and there was never any real telling what she would do whenever it took over. Normally it coincided with her smashing Sasuke or any of his idiot bimbos into a nearby wall for tormenting Naruto, but the one time she had truly lost it earned her a rep almost as bad her brother's.

Stretching so her muscles wouldn't cramp, Yuki looked around the clearing for something to do. She'd already checked out the hut the moment they arrived and she hadn't thought to bring a book. Hm, a book, her eyes fell to the scroll. Well, if nothing else she might gain an idea for possible abilities to try for in the future.

Her vampire blood combined with ninja training made it easy to read by only the pale light of the moon so she shut off the flashlight to preserve battery and not give anyone a possible clue to their location. For the next fifteen minutes she sat contentedly absorbing the names of the numerous jutsu, their creators, use, and reason of their sealing.

Most of the jutsu seemed to have been custom tailored to their creator's own special abilities, rendering them useless and lethal to others, but there were several whose main problem was the simple enormity of the chakra and concentration required to perform. In a battle speed was of the essence, so too much energy or too much time required to prepare could mean certain death. There were, however, a few who only required enormous amounts of chakra- possibly beyond a normal ninja's capacity- that looked like they might make a decent arsenal for someone with an abnormal chakra store, such as herself.

Yuki wasn't sure how this worked, but it seemed her natural affinity for energy allowed her to utilize large quantities of chakra, far more than a normal shinobi should have. Reaching a decision, she pulled out the pad and pen she kept to take down notes for errands and trading deals. There were two water jutsu and one fire that mostly demanded lots of chakra and good concentration. One more was a barrier for sensing movement in whatever range your chakra allowed that would have extensively drained a normal shinobi.

Unwinding the scroll a little further, Yuki was about to commence reading about a ritual for paralyzing anyone within a given radius when a particular name caught her eye.

Nakami Nishikawa.

Not long after being brought to Konoha, there was a point where Yuki had become frustrated with her lack of common…anything with the other students and hit a mildly depressed patch. Taking pity on the girl, the Third asked her to join him atop of the Hokage Tower where no one would disturb them. There he proceeded to tell her the story of a former comrade of his.

About a hundred years before, the Village Hidden in the Leaves was a new idea, two clans joined in a tentative peace brought by the friendship of two great shinobi determined not to see more of their family and clansmen suffer unnecessarily. Although growing steadily, many years of hatred and war left barriers of clan tradition and still raw wounds. In a radical act in hopes of bringing stability, the two founders of the village made a joint decision.

One of the main problems facing the sapling union was of a nature neither of their own fault nor even human. There were things which thrived on the bloodshed and anger of war, creatures that would yet see destruction and death continue by any means possible. Once upon a long abandoned history, the ninja had been skilled in the battling of such beings, but time and preoccupation with addressing the wrongs between themselves had caused the shinobi to forget. So, now facing such a challenge, they chose once more to put aside their disagreements and ask help of those they had once shunned for being meddlesomeness and prejudice against the way of the shinobi- The White Council of Wizards.

The Merlin, head of the Council, had acted as predicted, both eager to raise his status through the power such an alliance could bring yet still disdainful of those he saw as bloodthirsty barbarians. Negotiations held barely steady as ill feelings on both sides blocked any hope of progress. The Council determined to bring what it saw as an unruly and rebellious child to heel while the shinobi refused to bow to the obstinate demands of a relic faction who had seemingly lost sight of its original purpose and grown conceited in its size and age.

Finally, the shinobi saw that there was no compromise to be had; they squandered time while their lands lay vulnerable in their absence. So, with a heavy consciousness, they decided to return to their home and pray to Kami for a miracle.

It would seem the gods truly favored the union of the clans for a solution did present itself, albeit in a most unforeseen fashion. There was one in the Council who was of a different mind on the matter.

Blackstaff Ebenezer McCoy, private exterminator for the Council that held itself in so high regard the very existence of a need for an exception to rid them of things their own rules tied their hands against was an embarrassment staining their good name and only spoken of in the quietest of whispers behind locked doors.

The man could draw a good number of similarities between himself and the ninja, both worked in the shadows and were shunned despite their actions being not their own but rather moved by the will of others. The difference being while those who hired the ninja did so with pride and glee at the renowned names and powers at their command, the Blackstaff was shunted to the back of the closet until such desperate times demanded his abilities.

Having a measure of perceptiveness beyond the stagnant beliefs of his fellow wizards, Ebenezer knew and had witnessed much in his time as silent assassin of the White Council. He had seen the potential of the success of uniting the clans and understood all too well what stood to be lost should it fail. While not able to outright lend his aid he did have another solution. Ebenezer had an apprentice, a brilliant one at that. This young wizard he offered in service to the shinobi.

The two leaders had been hesitant of the idea, by their standards the apprentice was untried, but what other choice did they have? So they accepted; the price of this service- the apprentice requested to be allowed to learn the ways of the ninja.

And so it was that this young wizard came to Konoha where she not only helped to ensure peace and stability despite the attempts of those who wished it ill, but also excelled as the first and only known wielder of both spells and jutsu; the shinobi sorceress Nakami Nishikawa, who, in her home land, bore the title of Margaret LeFay, later to take the name Dresden.

The story of her grandmother had severe impact on the young girl. She had sworn to gain the strength she would need to protect those closest to her, now she knew it was not enough.

An image, Arianna had told her in a twisted moment of surprising insight, is a powerful thing, worth more than the ability to defeat a thousand enemies if the thousand enemies were already too afraid to test the stories of your power.

Protecting those around you only went so far in building an image.

Some of Harry Dresden's best known exploits- Arianna told many (probably exaggerated) to build her wrath so that the moment of her enemy's defeat would be that much sweeter- had not been protecting his family or friends, but deadly face-offs resulting from his continuous inability to keep his nose out of other people's business that left opponents many times his years and seeming strength in the ashes of his passing.

Margaret LeFay had been well known for taking a pleasure in chopping old legends down to size for the fun of it.

Well, Yuki surmised, if the Red Court was no longer around for her to vent her vengeance on there was plenty of other scum all too eager to feed off the innocent and weak. If revenge upon those who had brought her into the darkness was not in the cards wrecking destruction upon others of a similar shade would do just fine by her. The name Uzumaki Yuki Dresden would become synonymous with unmerciful terror upon those who would use their powers to prey on the weak.

This she swore on the blood of the family who lost their chance of happiness because they had done nothing wrong except raise a child who was not theirs but loved as their own. To be repaid in death and horror.

For now she was not yet strong enough to make good on her word, but she would get the power she needed, even if it meant using these seemingly impossible techniques. Shaking off the cloud of memories her grandmother's name had brought to mind Yuki resumed studying the text.

In total there were eleven jutsu- one sealing and nine ninjutsu, all of which would have made no sense if not for the small understanding of magic she possessed. It appeared the reason for their sealing was the fact they required traits found only in wizards. The last technique was a summoning that gave no explanation for its sealing.

Of course Yuki did not intend to attempt most of these in the near future, she would need a stronger grasp on magic to do that, but three were relatively simple and contained fairly detailed explanations so she'd start there. The first was a spying technique which, from the description, animated a chosen object to act like a mobile third eye while magic was employed to conceal by creating a sort of barrier that gently deflected outside chakra around the object.

Surprisingly simple for a forbidden jutsu since a good chakra user would be able to mask their chakra in place of the magic barrier.

Feeling a minor suspicion creeping on, Yuki glanced to make sure Naruto was still occupied before turning so he was firmly behind her back before proceeding. It seemed the Kyuubi could sense her ability to perceive him when her sight was open and she had no intention of giving it reason to act up and disturb Naruto's practice.

Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the spot just above and between her eyes. Feeling the slight familiar pressure build, rather like when you squeeze your eyes really tight, Yuki took a calming breath and opened her eyes to see the world as it truly was without barriers of mortal perception.

 _Ah ha!_ She'd been right. The explanation wouldn't just simply confuse a regular ninja, there were several important factors missing from the initial explanation. Lacking Sight these important points were invisible and if attempted to perform without would cause serious repercussions. It would appear Margaret LeFay had anticipated the possibility of enemies getting their hands on the scroll and prepared accordingly. Had a person simply copied the formulas like she obviously suspected they would it would have proved disastrous.

Extensive training to control her chakra had also taught her the ability to adjust the intensity of the Sight, rather like the difference between squinting through slits and staring bug-eyed at the sun. At the start she'd just been looking with enough magic to see the hidden writing, now she released all control to allow the full power of her inner eye to emerge to ensure she wasn't missing anything. She smiled as no more hidden goodies were revealed, that meant her judgment of how much power was needed to See without feeling like she was branding her eyes and mind was getting better.

Under the full power of her Sight the writing on the scroll took on a life of its own, she could now see that of the other eight there were two water jutsu and one of each other element. Five elemental jutsu, five chakra natures required, Margaret LeFay had mastered them all. An impossible feat; or at least it would be to someone who wasn't a wizard.

Chakra was a person's physical and mental energy brought together and mixed to produce the necessary power to create jutsu and was limited to an individual's endurance as well as correlating towards the element most associated with the person's nature.

Magic, on the other hand, was the raw life force of nature's very existence. By comparison chakra was a side-trickle from the flood of power waiting at the beck and call of a wizard's whim. Which is why the prospect of having to learn control over all five elements was not so much a shock as an 'oh great, I'm screwed' moment. Running a finger over the instructions for the fire jutsu that flickered and licked at the edges like lines of its nature element, Yuki turned her attention to the eighth and final jutsu.

This one interested her the most, different from the other elementals, it was like dark mist congealed into controlled strokes, not only that, the hidden instructions were written not in the expected Japanese but in Latin.

McCoy's one instruction on his visit to asses her power, that she be taught the language he and his apprentices had used in their casting.

Had he known his former protégé might pull something like this? She might never know but was grateful all the same. If only he could have been a bit more helpful in his demands. No one in the village spoke the language so she'd had to make due with a correspondence course which had not been the easiest of tasks. But she couldn't complain since one of the required courses in the academy was learning a foreign language, a class she'd skipped the first year of as she already spoke fluent Spanish along with her adoptive mother's native English and was mastering Japanese excellently. So now the time was spent on a computer in the teacher's lounge listening to instruction CDs and piecing the grammar together herself from the provided textbooks.

It was almost as tough as learning Japanese but her English bases had given her a foothold; the results were she could understand almost ninety-five percent of what was written here. She would have to cross-check a few words later but she was certain she could definitely master this one, just so long as the old man didn't find her copy first.

With that determination in mind, she set about carefully writing down all the instructions, separating the parts viewed with Sight onto different pages first so she could keep the lock and key apart- so to speak- for safety's sake. By the time she was done with all eleven, another hour had passed and she finally noticed the growing cramp in her neck.

 _Still at it,_ she smirked at the cute grunting noises Naruto always made when he was focusing. Deciding not disturb him she grabbed her canteen for a drink. "Oy," so much for not disturbing him, "you drank all the water. You hog."

"Oops."

" _Both_ of them?!"

Yuki facepalmed and sighed. "Never mind, I'll go refill'em. Just try not to burn the forest down while I'm gone. And whatever you do, do _not_ try any of the other jutsu!" With that stern warning she grabbed the canteens and set off at a light hop though the trees in the direction of the nearest stream.

One of the things she loved most about ninja training was learning how to soar swiftly and silently through the trees. For that brief moment between branches, when you weren't concentrating on chasing someone, it felt almost like flying. The feeling of weightlessness and small rush of adrenaline at having nothing between you and the ground was exhilarating.

It had been hard at first give up the natural hesitation to leave the security of smaller distances and simply let herself go in the rush of wind, but she had soon learned to enjoy it. And on top of that this was the one place she was actually happy for the few remnants of the vampire power left in her blood from her mother. The superior strength and heightened senses allowed her to do everything with almost ten times the speed, power, and accuracy a normal ninja could- when she let herself go that is.

She was still hesitant to employ her full potential most of the time in case she were to lose control, but she was slowly learning to deal with that as well.

At the stream she rinsed the containers and filled them with fresh water. A nice thing about Konoha and the surrounding country was that there were no major factories or production centers. All the modern things like electronics and such were imported so there was literally almost no pollution. There were practically no motor vehicles due to a lack of natural gas deposits compounded by the shinobi's general dislike of relying on outside trade for items that were not conductive to their way of life. Even the sewer lines were well planned out so as not to taint the natural environment.

After drinking her fill of the sweet, cold liquid, Yuki splashed her face and neck. Thus refreshed and slightly more alert, she proceeded to remove her sandals and dunk her feet in the soothing flow. Naruto wouldn't be done any time soon, and without her to talk to as a distraction he would be able to concentrate better. With this thought in mind she lay back on the grassy bank and allowed herself to relax and lazily search for patterns in the stars other than the official constellations.

She must have dozed off because the next thing she knew was coming alert to the feel of approaching chakras. There were too many and too spread out to be intruders, which meant only one thing, their thieving had finally been discovered.

 _Wow, that took longer than I expected,_ Yuki thought as she quickly slipped her sandals back on and moved away as quietly as she could at a slight angle so if anyone pursued she wouldn't give away Naruto's position. The moon had already set which told her she'd been gone almost twenty minutes. The sun would be rising soon which meant Naruto's window of opportunity was closing fast. All she could do now was cross her fingers and pray whoever was listening that this thing was real.

If it was they should be able to just hand back the scroll, but she still couldn't shake the nasty feeling it wasn't going to be quite so simple. If Mizuki had set this up for whatever reason they needed to come up with a plan and fast. Luckily it seemed she had done a proper job of masking her chakra and after a few minutes in which no one followed, she adjusted her course and headed for the clearing as fast as she could.

She was still halfway out when a scent hit her nose which made her inner demon raise it head and growl.

Not a whole lot, but enough to be concerned. And worse, it belonged to Iruka sensei.

Immediately her pace tripled. The scent was getting stronger the closer she got to the clearing which meant that was where it was coming from.

 _What the fuck happened? Naruto would never attack Iruka without good reason and there was no way he'd ever hurt Sensei to that extent. At least not intentionally._ Naruto couldn't even bear to watch her skinning anything bigger than a fish not to mention had never attacked anyone with intent to injure. Every time in practice should he accidentally hurt someone, as was not uncommon in sparing class, he would freak out and there would be no end to his apologizing- well, with the exception of Sasuke of course.

The clearing was as empty as the feeling in her stomach. There was evidence of a small scuffle but the only blood here was Iruka's. She didn't need to try to see the trail of crimson droplets marking which way they had gone but Yuki knew better than to take anything at face value when tracking, especially in a fight. What she found didn't help.

There were clear signs that Naruto had left this place running and of course Iruka had followed. What worried her was the trail belonging to a second grownup. This could be bad. Iruka would no doubt give Naruto a chance to explain himself, but she wasn't so sure about this other person. Could they have been the one to injure Iruka? Had they simply decided to take this opportunity to eliminate Naruto and injuring Sensei in the process?

Standing here wasn't going to bring answers so she set out after them.

The odor of blood lessened as she moved away from the clearing. Finally it was weak enough for her to begin differentiating other smells. There was Iruka's, obviously, she could easily read the high tension in his scent, Naruto's was clearly upset, but this third scent… Yuki growled low in her chest. She so should have seen this coming. Once she caught up Mizuki and her were going to have a very long chat about why he reeked of hate and bloodlust while chasing after her little brother.

Luckily Naruto still sucked at subtlety, the trail of smashed branches where he and his pursuers had taken to the trees was clear as day and Yuki was able to double her speed once she copied them. A loud crash just up ahead told her she was close and this time she held nothing back to get there.

"How did you know Naruto… How did you know that it was me and not Iruka?" Even still this far off Yuki had no trouble picking up the outraged cry. Oh Mizuki was in for it now.

There was a soft answer. She couldn't quite make out the words but it was impossible to not recognize her other sensei's voice. She relaxed; at least if it was Iruka facing Mizuki that meant Naruto was safe. Just a few more leaps and she came upon the two.

Mizuki stood glaring at the other who sat panting at the base of a tree. Naruto's scent also indicated he was close. So here they were, the moment of truth.

"You're a fool! Why are you protecting that _freak_? He's the one that whipped out you family." Yuki dug her nails into the bark of the tree she was standing in. It was taking all her self control not to jump down there and beat the shit out of that ass, but she wanted to hear Iruka's honest reply.

"I don't care what you say. You're not getting your hands on that scroll."

"Like you could stop me." The look on Mizuki's face twisted with his smile of evil delight. "Don't you get it? Naruto is just like me."

"How's that?" At least Iruka sounded like he was decently mad at his colleague.

"He wants the scroll for his own power and his own vengeance. That's how beasts are. He'll pour all his rage into the scroll and destroy everything."

_You want rage and destruction? You got it dick wad._

"You're right." Yuki's anger froze in her veins at the response from the man she had trusted with her little brother's safety.

"That is how beasts are." Yuki didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until the condescending smirk in Iruka's voice restarted her heart. "But that's not who Naruto is. He's nothing like that.

"Naruto's one of a kind, works hard and puts his whole heart into it. Sure he messes up sometimes and everyone jumps on him. But his suffering only makes him stronger. That's what separates him from being a beast.

"So you're wrong, he's nothing like the Nine Tailed Fox. I've acknowledged him as one of my excellent students. He's Uzumaki Naruto of the Hidden Leaf Village!"

If the situation wasn't what it was Yuki would have burst out laughing at the expression of utter shock on Mizuki's face. He looked like Iruka had just gone and slapped him repeatedly across the face with a cow pie. But it didn't last long as his face quickly morphed back into that look of malicious scorn.

"Huh, you really believe that drivel? Iruka, I was going to save you for later but I changed my mind. YOU'RE FINISHED!"

The hate filled scream triggered Yuki's reflexes. Before she even knew what she was doing she had jumped and landed in front of Iruka in a crouch, kunai at the ready to protect her teacher. But she needn't have worried.

A blur of orange streaked out from behind a nearby tree and collided sharply with the maddened attacker, sending his large shuriken spinning away harmlessly. Mizuki slid quite a distance before he managed to stop himself.

"Not bad," he spat as he crawled back to his feet, "for a little _punk_."

The aura of pure hate that emanated from Naruto would have scared anyone less obsessed than Mizuki at that moment as he replied simply. "If you _ever_ lay a hand on my sensei _I'll kill you._ "

"Such big words," Mizuki sneered, "I can completely destroy you with a single move!"

Yuki moved to back Naruto up before her brother's words stopped her in her tracks. "Take your best shot _fool_. _I'll give it back to you a thousand fold_!" The anger in his voice brought a vicious grin to Yuki's face. Mizuki did not stand a chance. Not when he'd pissed Naruto to that extent.

"I'd like to see you try! Show me what you can do Nine Tailed Fox!"

Naruto let his actions reply to the sneer. "Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Yuki had guessed right. Mizuki never stood a chance. She didn't bother to hide it as her feral grin grew till a chuckle escaped as the traitor was beaten to a bloody pulp by a thousand perfectly executed Naruto clones.

Seeing she wasn't needed she turned around and headed back to where Iruka still sat. "How bad are your injuries?" She asked as she opened her pouch to get out the small med kit.

Iruka smiled and gestured to his leg where a kunai had hit. "Mostly not to deep. Mizuki was aiming for Naruto but I pushed him out of the way. But I'm not too sure about this one on my back."

Yuki nodded and motioned him to turn so she could see. It was already getting brighter so she didn't need a light to see. The cut was wider than a normal shuriken; it had probably been a hit from one of Mizuki's larger pair. It would require stitches but wasn't serious, the bleeding had already stopped and was starting to dry. "You'll live," she smiled as she sat back on her heels next to the man.

Iruka grinned. "I'd ask but am I right in guessing Mizuki tricked Naruto somehow and you let yourself get dragged along again?"

Yuki nodded and gave the teacher a quick rundown of that afternoon's events since they had last seen each other.

Iruka sighed when she finished. "I would never have guessed." He looked sadly to where the other man was still putting up a pathetic attempt to protect himself and shook his head. "All this time…"

"Don't sweat it sensei." Yuki poked him lightly in the arm. "If anything I'm the one who should have seen this coming. I did, actually, but…"

"But if Naruto had a chance you didn't want it to pass." Iruka smiled and patted his student on the head. "You're a good kid Yuki, a great sister and a brilliant student, but you've still got a lot to learn. Don't beat yourself up.

"Besides," he smiled and looked over to the monstrous pile of clones now hiding their target completely from view, "it all worked out well in the end."

Yuki smiled and the conversation ended there as a chorus of bangs sounded the dissolving of the clones, leaving the original scratching his head sheepishly over the barely twitching mass that had once been Mizuki. "Heh, heh, sorry," Naruto grinned, "I kinda got carried away." The smile changed to concern. "You ok there Iruka sensei?"

"He's fine," Yuki smirked and got up to amble over to take a look at the one who had started all this. Mizuki barely moaned when she poked him hard in the side with the toe of her shoes. Something grated and gave. _Broken ribs,_ Yuki thought with a sadistic sense of satisfaction. Summoning up two clones of her own she ordered them to dump this piece of trash on the Hokage's doorstep to deal with before rejoining the others. She stopped short at the sight.

Naruto stood with his eyes closed while Iruka pulled off the goggles he was never seen without. What happened next brought a lump to the throat and tears to the eyes of even the normally immovable girl. Iruka removed his own headband- the very one Naruto had made such a fuss about trying on just the night before- and tied it firmly in the place the goggles used to occupy. Casting a glance at Yuki who was still hovering nearby, the teacher smiled and motioned her closer.

"Ok, you can open your eyes now."

What followed would forever remain in Yuki's mind as one of the most beautiful and proud moments in her life.

The fancy ceremony of the day before paled in comparison of the simple scene that unfolded. History would never record what happened that October morning, only the three who stood in attendance would ever know the full story of how Konoha's greatest hero made the leap from student to ninja after so many trial and hardships. But it would forever hold a special place in their hearts.

The confused expression on Naruto's face when he looked to see his beloved teacher holding the goggles and missing his own headband didn't last long before the reality dawned on the boy. Then the look of utter joy as Iruka formally announced Naruto's graduation. Both children couldn't contain their joy and the announcement of their own little celebration brought the happiness to overflowing.

Oh they knew the road would only get harder from here, but neither cared as they threw all formality to the wind and stumbled over each other to tackle their beloved sensei in giant hugs. They could worry about that tomorrow. Right now, they let themselves go in the glow of the moment. They could figure out the rest later- over ramen.

**...**

Ebenezer McCoy replaced the stone in the bowl of similar looking rocks and sighed. "It's all been worked out. The kid, Naruto, was tricked into it with some kind of promise about him being able to graduate and, of course, Maggie went along with it."

He tried not to be too harsh as he cast a disapproving look at the man occupying the seat on the other side of his dining room table. "You still think you shouldn't be getting involved?" He immediately felt just a tinge of guilt at the look his words brought. The poor idiot really thought what he was doing was the right thing.

"You said it yourself McCoy. As long as she's safe from Mab and all the other shit that's my life this is for the best." With that he stood and walked out off the room.

Ebenezer sighed as he watched his grandson leave. Stubborn idjit.

Of course he was a fine one to point fingers.

Still. "Only time can tell my boy. Only time can tell."

**...**

"And thus ended our most notorious prank to this day. I don't think I need to say how pissed Sasuke was when we walked back into town later that morning. Especially when he saw my clones lugging a pulverized Mizuki." Yuki laughed and finished the last of the liquid in her glass.

"Of course he couldn't say anything, what with Iruka being right there with us and the Hokage had already called off the search. But I'll never forget his face when he saw Naruto the first time with the headband. If I hadn't been so tired and dragged the two of us home for a very overdue nap I think he would have taken the opportunity to pick another fight."

Her companion allowed a small smile to tug at his lips as he flipped through a few more pictures. "That I could definitely see happening."

Yuki laughed again and stood to stretch. "Ok, enough reminiscing. Tomorrow night's Halloween so I strongly suggest you getting some shut eye as well." With that she ruffled her companion's hair and giggled impishly at the anticipated vehement protests before she plucked up the Ipad to put away before crawling into her bed. "Night, night." She called as she pulled the drapes shut to block out the light from the fire.

Her roommate sat for a few more minutes, watching the embers die in the grid. This night's talk hadn't provided much by way of useful information, but it had given him a whole new insight to what and who he was dealing with.

Finally with a sigh, he brushed back platinum locks from where they had been hanging in ruffled strands. He tried to contemplate whether or not this information would be relevant to his master. Grey eyes fell to the closed drapes hiding the object of his inner conflict.

Nah, he finally decided. Her history wouldn't make a difference to the old hag, and even if it did it hadn't been in his orders.

Besides, he _really_ didn't want to know what the unpredictable kunoichi would do if she found out he was talking behind her back about her private history. He had a feeling she'd make what happened to Mizuki sensei look like a massage from the Dali Lama, and she had no doubt learned many more ways over the years to make a person hurt. Of that he was more than aware.

With that thought firmly in his mind he rose, put out the fire, and went to his own bed to prepare to face another day with the entity named Maggie Uzumaki Yuki Dresden.

* * *

**_Mwahahaahahahaha, the poor world has no idea what's gonna hit it._ **


	5. Chapter IV: Balance Is Overrated

**Chapter IV: Balance Is Overrated**

When one is a wizard one must learn to live with the varied nuanced brought by modern complications with your powers. Like the occasional shattered light bulb when tempers flare or learning how to control your power so as not to cause blackouts for several blocks when jutsu practice goes awry. Or perhaps being showered by bits and pieces from the alarm clock face exploding under a combination of the latter aided by your fist landing just a bit too hard on the silencing button.

Such was Yuki’s morning greeting when she woke to face the sun the day of the big reveal for who she would be spending the next several years training together with. She really had intended to get to bed earlier the night before, honest. Despite her and her brother’s particular talent for being able to recharge very quickly in a very short time the problem was the matter of how bored they could get in said amount of time before something went out of whack.

   After the very long nap right after the night in the forest to catch up on the lost sleep from the previous week, Naruto and her had joined up with Iruka for the promised ramen. The evening had lasted fairly late until Iruka’s fatigue from his wounds caught up and he’d had to call it a night. However, having slept all day, both Uzumakis were still charged up and the citizens of the village were still wondering how anyone’d managed to get a wink with those two firecrackers going off. Of course this meant they were wiped the next morning and slept till sundown when the cycle repeated itself all over again.

Now they were both suffering minor cases of self induced nocturnal-ism. Not that that was uncommon, given they often stayed up late to practice, but this time there had been no classes to go to make sure they woke up in the mornings. Ergo them not being able to sleep till late last night and why Yuki was cranky enough to smash the clock. Oh yeah, that would be the other reason she would be happy of the promised extra income to be made available soon. With her brute strength and Naruto’s carelessness there was a another reason they couldn’t have nice things.

“Naruto,” she grumbled and gave his shoulder a sluggish version of a vigorous shake, “time to get up. We need to be at the academy in an hour.” A sudden burst of adrenaline sliced through the remaining sleep hangover fog, leaving her wide awake. But her reaction was overshadowed by the explosion that knocker her out of the bed to do a near face-plant on the floor.

“It’s today! It’s today! It’s finally today!” Yuki quickly rolled to the side to avoid being thumped by the feet pounding about with excessive gusto as Naruto danced around the room.

“WOULD YOU KNOCK THAT OUT!?” Yuki screamed as she made it to her feet. “Honestly, I know you’re excited but geez. Tone it down. Some of us actually know what it means to get in a fight where you have to kill someone.” Yuki abruptly shut her mouth. She hadn’t meant to drag up bad memories, but Naruto had never been in a situation where he would have to fight for his life or the lives of others. Of course she knew they would not be purposely exposed to such situations for a while yet, but there was always the possibility and it was not sitting well with her. She didn’t mind killing, but Naruto was a different story.

Luckily it would appear he hadn’t heard her through all his boisterous chanting. Sighing, she permitted a small smile as she watched and allowed some of his enthusiasm to filter into her own energy. “Ok! Enough!” she yelled to be heard over him as she grabbed him by the collar and hauled him in the direction of the door. “Put some of that energy towards getting dressed,” she said and shoved him out of the apartment.

Finally alone, she leaned against the wall and breathed for a few seconds. _Today’s the day, huh._ She’d found over the years that worrying about things she had no control over was nothing but an energy drain. So, with a determined shove, she pushed away from the wall as she booted out her previous line of thought in favor of figuring out what she was going to wear. It wasn’t like the test where they would be posing for a crowd afterwards, which meant she didn’t have to use the pair of clothes she set aside to use for special occasions. She never had the money for something nice so the formal outfit was actually a set of her usual apparel that she simply didn’t use unless she needed to look… less scruffy for something. Although the graduation and photo shoot for their ninja papers had required her to at least look decent, she was willing to bet their new sensei would not be quite as put off with her wearing an everyday outfit.

But still, good impressions are more helpful to get off on the right foot. So she dug around for the least worn shirt and pants without any holes or stains. Her day clothes all consisted of T-shirts and knee length- full length in winter- pants similar to the kind Sasuke wore, but in black or dark olive green. A pair of pants of the later color and a plain, sleeveless black shirt passed inspection and she slid into them.

The headband was a slight dilemma. One could wear it any way they wished so long as it was plainly visible for all to see. She wasn’t fond of the idea of having to wear it all the time on her head. She’d quickly discovered how uncomfortable a cloth soaked with sweat stuck to your head could be, and it always messed up the neat ponytail she kept her hair in. Of course she knew it could deflect pretty much anything one might have aimed at their forehead (not that that would be a common target) and it was nice not having sweat dripping in your eyes, but she didn’t want to wear it properly unless in an actual fight. So around her left bicep it went.

Dressed and ready to face another day, she set the kettle to boil and went to see how her unpredictable brother was coming along.

   “Again, Naruto?” She sighed and took in the mountain of empty instant ramen bowls. She was going to have to double the fruit servings for lunch to make sure he got the necessary fiber and vitamins not found in the flavored noodles. Even the Kyuubi had only so much he could work with on a nutrition depleted body. Oh and he wasn’t dressed yet. She momentarily contemplated if she would be able to clean the dirty snack plates in the sink, but decided she’d make him do them tonight. There was a reason they always ate at her place and she bought him all his ramen in paper cups with disposable chopsticks.

After a knock on the head to reinforce her reminder to hurry up and get dressed, Yuki left Naruto to his breakfast and went to get her own. After making tea she browned a slice of bread in the pan and cut a hole in the middle to add an egg. Normally she didn’t buy eggs as they cost more, but she’d decided to make something special for the day. Of course Naruto would also be getting the same if he’d done as she’d told him. Maybe tomorrow, she’d long learned a special occasion theme could be used interchangeably to either celebrate or deal with negative fallout. Just plaster on a different name for the event. Luckily, the former was more commonly in call for than the later.

   “Heeeeeeeeeeeyyyyy!!!’ Any normal person would have learned to fly for that brief period of time that their senses were assaulted by that siren level squeal. Fortunately Yuki had originally grown up in a family with five children, in a country where high octaves were not uncommon in a greeting. These past four years had only immunified her hearing to it even more.

“Done already?” she calmly inquired of the blond squirming like an octopus, while pressing against her window making faces. “Go on ahead, I have to finish lunch then I’ll catch up.” Since she had no idea what would happen once they had their new team she’d decided to make onigiri for the both of them. Since it was not uncommon for friends to share lunch she’d reasoned that maybe a sufficient quantity to be shared with new team members might be a good way to get off on the right foot. Unless Naruto went and ate his entire sum all on his own.

With a sigh she relinquished herself to the inevitable. Both of them were grown up, no matter how she wished it were not so, and they needed to learn to move on. The best she could do was hope the Hokage’s insight was enough to pair Naruto with a good team and sensei that would be able to offer support while putting up with his antics.

Personally, deep down, she kind of hoped she’d get paired with Sasuke. Not for the reason most people would imagine. She simply wanted further opportunities to show up that tar pit sludge. Of course she had every mobile limb twisted into an intricate pretzel of crosses in entreaty that she be paired with Naruto. But Naruto was good at toughing it out. Sasuke on the other hand…

   With a grumpy huff, she put such thoughts away and quickly washed her now empty dishes before setting about creating the traditional rice balls. Of course the fillings were bought cheap, but after four years of cooking herself she’d learned a large variety of ways to spice up and add different flavors to the sparse ingredients she had to work with- since she had no intention of buying anything special for those worthless brats whose taste buds hadn’t barely even begun to develop.

Twenty minutes later she finished wrapping the last of the rice balls in plastic wrap and packaging them nicely in separate handkerchiefs. Glancing at the clock, she figured with all the time they had Naruto would have taken the walk to the academy at a leisurely stroll; which meant if she ran she would make it there in time to give him the lunch before they entered said building. She didn’t _have_ to hurry, but the faces of everyone in their class, especially Sasuke’s, when they found out Naruto had somehow managed to graduate was not something she would easily trade away. Oh, and Naruto in a classroom with no teacher… yeah that wasn’t one she wanted to try again anytime soon.

Luck, however, was not on her side today.

No sooner had she landed in front of the entrance than she was forced to the decision to either sidestep two rampaging girls who were too busy glaring each other down, while still somehow running at top speed, to notice anything else around them, or stop them cold. She decided for the former. Whatever their problem she had no desire to deal with it at this hour of the morning. Besides, Naruto’s scent was extremely fresh, which meant he’d already entered ahead of her.

Even at the leisurely pace she set, Yuki still managed to catch up to Ino and Sakura who were now crammed in the door, fighting over who could get through first. Seriously, what was with those two?

Oh right, Mr. ‘Lord of the Fangirl Drool’, who simply had to roll out on the wrong side of bed every morning to make her life that much more hellish. If she had the luck to be teamed up with him her first order of business would be to shave his head in some random fashion then steal a load of Botox from the nearest cosmetology clinic to freeze his face in a permanent smile. The feeling doubled as Sakura casually tossed Naruto aside when he stood to greet her in favor of being able to speak even the sparsest sentence to the duck head. Honestly, how did someone get cursed with a hairstyle like that? A demented big brother with random fashion sense perhaps?

   Already the regular crowd of females, egged on by their bodies’ newly bursting fountain of hormones, was flocking like vultures fighting over carrion in the middle of a desert. _Here we go again,_ she sighed. The only reason she always sat next to Sasuke was to scare off potential lovebirds and their mush spouting fountains of meal re-visitation induction. She’d let them squabble for a bit to get it out of their system before she hauled Naruto back to his seat so she could sit with him and peace would be restored until lunch break. No she wouldn’t be missing this _a bit_.

Of course Naruto, not being one to sit back when there was action, had decided to stir the pot a bit by hopping on the desk to begin a glaring match with Sasuke. Crap, she’d better get in there before anything more could go down. Passing through the outer ring of girls, who she could have smelt dripping estrogen from their pores without her enhanced senses, was easy enough. It would seem most had a substantially healthy fear of her that the mere approach of her presence sent them scuttling off in any random direction, so long as it was away from her. The singular problem was the detonating duo standing in the thick of it right next to the desk.

“Move!”

The only thing that could get Sakura and Ino to stop trying to fry each other’s brains or Naruto with their rays of hate on glare and limited vocabulary was the girl who didn’t give a fuck about their so-called ‘battles of love’. Of course this was also the only thing that could unit them to a common cause.

“No way!”

“Don’t even think about it!”

“You’re not sitting next to Sasuke again!”

“Yeah! Sasuke, you don’t want….”

   Never in the history of the existence of the classroom had it been so quite when occupied as that singular moment when the two girls turned to carry their argument to the object of their affections. Only to be met by a sight that shocked their tiny worlds to universes beyond imagination.

Yuki found herself, for once, questioning the authenticity of the sigh before her. Then trying not to choke on the laugh her still surprised mind was restricting the reflex ability that would open her airway enough to release said expression. A high pitched scream of pure horror from Sakura, who stumbled back into her like somehow backing away would make it untrue, jolted her reactions all back into working order. And she was forced to support herself with a hand on the desk to keep from falling over as she cracked up at the two boys who could not break apart fast enough to cough and gag in their respective directions as if that would help wash away what had just happened.

“Naruto!!!” Sakura may have been intimidated by Yuki. But if there was one thing she would absolutely not stand, it was the knowledge that someone she considered an even lower two bit looser than Ino had been the first one to kiss Sasuke. Well, Yuki assumed it was Sasuke’s first kiss. Unless he had some secret life none of them had thought to consider. Of course, none of Naruto’s protests that it was _very_ much unintentional fell on deaf ears. “You’re finished.”

Had anyone else threatened a beating Naruto would have easily dodged it and retaliated. However this was Sakura, his eternal crush. There was no way he’d even have the guts to flee her wrath. And she could lend new meaning to the word wrath indeed.

That is, if she hadn’t forgotten about the girl she had to go over in her haste to get at the blond.

Yuki did _not_ take kindly to being used as climbing equipment, even less to people threatening her little brother. But she was still giddy from the hilarity of the situation, so let it slip and merely blocked Sakura’s punch. “It wasn’t his fault, so sit down and cool it.”

 Sakura, and about… oh, only the entire female populace of the class, looked like murder would be too kind for the siblings. Naruto for the even-though-accidental smooching of their idol, and Yuki for stopping them delivering rightful judgment. The tension could have stopped a speeding kunai knife. Only one person was unaffected.

“Take a load off. Sasuke doesn’t even give a damn about you lot, and I’m quite sure if he wanted a smack down with Naruto he could deliver it just fine without your help.” Yuki glared very pointedly at Sakura’s nose, careful to avoid initiating a soulgaze.

“Good morning. Everyone take your seats please.” Ignoring Sakura’s continued glares, Yuki smoothly complied with Iruka’s order and slid along the bench so she would be between Sasuke and anyone else who joined them. Predictably Naruto hopped over the table to occupy the space on the other side of her, and, after a moment’s hesitation before realizing this was the closest she would be getting to her idol today as well, Sakura after that. The rest of the crowd dispersed, trailing veiled threats and mild curses.

No, Yuki thought, she would not be missing this. Refocusing on Iruka sensei, she waited patiently for him to finish his congratulations speech before getting down to the explanation of the need for squads to those who were unfamiliar with the idea. She already understood the process as she’d made it a habit of always digging around to prepare for potential situations, especially ones that were a given to come. Finding out about the group thing had been easy and Shikamaru had been most helpful with the explanation.

Leaning back against the desk behind her, Yuki listened only half-heartedly as Iruka began reading the teams out. She didn’t particularly care who she went in a team with. Just so long as it included Naruto or Sasuke and wasn’t Sakura or Ino- she’d had plenty of them, thank you.

“Squad Seven, Uzumaki Naruto.” Yuki was immediately on alert. This was it. “Haruno Sakura.” Yuki’s serious tone of mind disappeared at the sudden cheer from Naruto and a groan of doom from Sakura. That was going to be interesting to watch.

“Uchiha Sasuke.” This time her stomach dropped with Naruto’s groan of doom. There went both opportunities she wanted. Now she’d probably get stuck with some other punk she would be controlling the urge to beat up very other minute. The only other decent kids in the class were Shikamaru and Choji, but they were nowhere near the level of Naruto and Sasuke.

She was doomed.

“And Uzumaki Yuki.”

“YEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” The entire room exploded out of their seats at the room shaking cheer.

“Oh yeah! Oh yeah!” Naruto only took a beat to recover and join his elated sister on the desk as they danced arm-in-arm to a jig only they could hear in accompaniment to the victory chant. Together and, from Yuki’s point of view, with even more chances to kick Sasuke’s smug ass this was going to totally sweet and infinitely bizarre and even more entertaining.

Speaking if which…

“HEY! Wait! Iruka sensei, why does a _great_ ninja like me have to be in a group with a slug like Sasuke?!?”

“Sasuke-kun, like your Onee-san, had the best scores of all the graduating students. Naruto-kun, you had the worst scores.” The laughter which met Iruka’s statement had the students rolling in the aisles as he continued his explanation. “To make a balanced group, we put the best students with the best students.”

“Best…with the worst… IRUKA SENSEI!!! WHAT ARE YOUR IMPLYING!!!” Even Ino was quick to back off from Sakura’s full blown temper and naturally activating ‘big head’ screaming jutsu that needed no hand sign to activate, which almost rivaled the teacher’s.

Iruka, being the only one besides Yuki to be unaffected, smiled. “Naruto may have the worst academic scores. You, however, Haruno, have the lowest scores for physicals. Since there were too many students, we had the choice of either making two teams with only two genin or creating a four-man squad. Thus it was decided that the two students with the best scores would be paired with the students who had the most to work on in their respected areas.

“So Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto and Yuki will be forming Squad 7 from this day forward. Any questions?”

A murmured response in the negative was instantly mumbled by most of the class. Everyone knew the teams were organized by their sensei-to-be and the Hokage himself. Questioning them would be like asking why the sun shone. After that, other than a mild melt down of Ino during team ten’s roster announcing, there was relatively little commotion as the remaining students were divided into their own three man squads.

With everyone now organized, Iruka gave one more speech to congratulate them all and remind them he was still available to talk if they had problems settling in. After a final ‘good luck’, he dismissed them all until after lunch when they would regroup to meet their new squad leaders.

Barely had Iruka left the room that Sasuke was out of his seat and heading for the door. A mere second later Sakura was hot on his tail, with Naruto trailing not far behind. Yuki felt a headache coming on. Sasuke and Naruto she could handle, Sakura however… As the old adage goes, be very careful what you wish for. Happily even Ino was too distressed by the news she would not be on her dream team and was busy distracting herself by sorting out the new relationship between herself and boys she would be stuck with to start up some kind of protest.

By the time Yuki caught up to Naruto he was looking dejectedly at the ground. Sakura was a little ways down the path, calling for Sasuke in that annoying high pitched tone that made Yuki want to strangle her just to get her to _shut the hell **up.**_ To keep herself from doing so, Yuki buried a hand in Naruto’s hair and ruffled it. Too busy moping, Naruto doesn’t shake it off.

“Come on,” Yuki moved the hand to prod him in the shoulder, “let’s go. I wanna grab a nap before lunch.” They had about three hours until they were supposed to convene again and she could do with the extra sleep.

Back home, she hopped in the shower to rinse off the sweat from the still warm early October sun before pulling on the outfit she wore at home. Since their budget was always tight she’d instigated a rule that at home they use the items which were older, had too many stitched up rips to be presentable, or that Naruto had accidentally bleached to cut down on wear to their better clothes in hopes of them lasting longer.

Rather than joining her, Naruto got out a scroll and continued reading where he had left off. Yes, to the rest of the class, Naruto reads. A lot. Mostly comics, but when he wanted something badly enough- say, beating Sasuke- good luck to the one who would endeavor to pull him away from the chakra and jutsu scrolls. The school library had actually had to enforce a limit to how many times they could re-borrow books in a given time period.  

Yuki didn’t know how much time had passed; she was only in a light doze that proved restful but not deep enough to be oblivious to her surroundings. The glance at the wall clock informed her she’d been sleeping for about an hour. The nose that woke her had been the sound of the front door being opened and closed. Listening intently she could tell he’d headed up to the roof, one of his favorite lookout points to sit and watch the town go by or simply reflect. Thus reassured she went back to the comfort of her pillow.

Barely had she found the comfiest position that the late morning tranquility was shattered, as the sound of a shuffle reached her ears. More specifically, a shuffle between Naruto and who could only be Sasuke, judging from the voice mixed with her younger brother’s.

Goddamn it, why did Sasuke just so happen to occupy an apartment _right across_ _the road_ from them.

Apparently the Hokage, or whoever was in charge of overseeing the orphans of late ninja, had decided it was a good idea to lump them all together in the same vicinity. This would not be the first outbreak between the two boys and she highly doubted it would be the last. Just, was it asking too much for some space to try to keep those two from trying to kill each other every other hour of the day.

Not bothering to change into her outside outfit, Yuki slammed the window screen open and covered the distance just as Sasuke hoped out of his own window. Yuki was about to grab him by the collar and toss him back through the opening when her nose recognized the one dead giveaway that told her this was not the Uchiha. Plus there was that non-condescending smirk plastered on his face. This was confirmed when she peeked into the room to see the back a violently thrashing duck-butt head.

She almost couldn’t believe it. Sasuke was trussed up like Thanksgiving dinner with a big tape ‘X’ over his mouth. Oh, she was _never_ forgetting this one.

So what was Naruto up to then, dressed as his rival. To cause large amounts of mayhem preferably. Not everyone would fall for it of course, but the Uchiha’s track record would forever bear this mark of loss.

She wanted to see what her little ototo had planned. However, she felt this was his moment in the spotlight. So she wasn’t going to detract from it by stepping in, in any way. Besides, she really wanted to finish her nap. But she couldn’t ignore the desire to see what he would do.

So, reaching a compromise, she formed the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu hand seal. Unlike Naruto who only read the instruction manual, Yuki had checked out the part of the explanation that explained the perks of the jutsu. So she knew anything the clone saw or experienced would be passed back to her own brain when it was dispersed. After a passing nod to the copy of herself that ran off in the direction Naruto had left she turned her attention back to the squirming form of her new teammate.

“Welcome to the team Sasuke. In the event of possible brain damage in the near future, be prepared to check your dignity, and sanity, at the door.” She smile as her tried to sear holes through her head with his eyes. “I had nothing to do with this. This one’s all on him.”

With a laugh at the look on Sasuke’s face as he realized she really didn’t have a hand in his defeat, that Naruto really and truly had beaten him, she answered the beckoning softness of her pillow.

As she drifted off she wondered again at the Hokage’s choice of match when he knew the mix of team 7 was a guaranteed catastrophe begging for an excuse to go drive everyone in and around it to rip their hair out from the insanity.

Screw it, whatever excuse Iruka gave, balance really was overrated. This was going to be a very interesting ride.

Let the games begin.

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**_Comments are like caffeine for the plot bunny._ **


	6. Whoop-de Doo!

**Chapter V: Whoop-de Doo!**

_Yes!_ Yuki cheered mentally. _Finally a day I can go to class without an emergency pack of toothpicks in my pocket to flick at everyone._

Today was the day. That old geezer had managed to get it through his thick skull that putting Naruto with anyone other than her was suicidal in the very ethics of such a brainwave. With Sasuke and herself on the team it would have proved a challenge to anyone else unlucky enough to be paired with them. Lucky for Naruto and Sakura, because together they amounted to a ninja that might be able to pull through and keep up with the class aces. If only the two could work out their differences and the latter stop trying to destroy any hope for the other's brain matter.

This was why it was all the more amusing to see the two leaning against each other back-to-back as they dozed under the midmorning sun. It would have been that much more adorable if she wasn't currently fuming at the missing member of their team.

**_seventeen hours earlier_**

Yuki sighed and finally gave into the urge to put her feet up on the table and lean back into her seat. It had been an hour since Iruka sensei left and thirty minutes before that when all the other trainees greeted their new team leaders and took off like bats out of Hell.

Leaving only the mismatched crew, that pretty much everyone else was no doubt thanking their lucky stars to have avoided, enjoying one another's company.

The light doze she'd begun succumbing to was broken as Naruto's monologue of broadcasting his own boredom every ten minutes was replaced by a light giggling and sound of scuffling by the door. Turning her head sluggishly, the older sister took in the sight of her brother balancing on a stool to prepare his favorite 'welcome the new teacher' trick.

"That's what he gets for coming late. Surprise!"

"You're asking for trouble. You know you shouldn't do that."

Yuki quirked an eyebrow as the conversation progressed. Partially in surprise because Sakura had no way to know the subdued excitement in her scent was declaring her a lying hypocrite. But mostly due to the shockingly _civil_ manner in which the two were interacting. When _Sasuke_ was _in_ the same room no less.

She couldn't help a smirk as she recalled the scene that had taken place just two hours earlier.

At first she'd briefly considered putting the lid on Naruto's bid to gain a cheat sheet on how to score Sakura brownie points by finding out what she didn't like about him. But then, watching how well he managed to behave while acting the role of the Uchiha, she'd decided to see where it went.

Of course she'd been prepared to step in before Naruto managed to cheat too much, but his own thick headedness took care of that all on its own. The symptoms her clone's memories showed when it dissipated led her to the box of milk left on the table in her brother's kitchen. Goddamn it! That was why she always tried to make sure the perishables were stored in _her_ fridge. How does one not notice when dairy products are two weeks past their expiry date?

Oh yeah, when it was Naruto.

Her clone had also briefly wondered if she'd have to make sure the Uchiha didn't murder the blond for impersonating him. Astoundingly, Sasuke actually seemed more amused by the matter than annoyed. Wait, did that mean he cared about Sakura or did he just think the two nutcases deserved each other?

Bah, who cared.

So here they were, the emo duck-butt-for-a-head, one blondie, the strawberry bubble, and the snowball. To be honest they sounded more like a stoner buffet than ninjas. The thought of which must be why she failed to hear the faintest patter of a heartbeat in the hall until just seconds before the door was flung open.

PAT!

The little sound shouldn't have been so loud. But with shock that was always the case. Had Naruto actually managed to do it? Or had the jonin simply not cared?

Well, with that look, she suspected the later. The sleepy curiosity of the one eye that was visible showed the same mild surprise Yuki herself felt. Even she would have seen that one coming. Maybe he was one of those types that only perform well while pushed to it?

"Hmmm, how can I put this? My first impression of this group…

"You're a bunch of idiots." Those five and a half words landed over the group like a blanket of subzero jello on a newly sparking fire. Definitely not Naruto's element of surprise then. It was a good move to remind them how far down the food chain they were, and that they'd do well to not forget any time soon.

With his new litter now subdued, the jonin turned and left. The four dutifully trailing behind like ducklings to their mother. Yuki had to smile and resist the urge to casually mention this to Sasuke.

Once at their destination, the rooftop garden on the academy's practice hall, the jonin perched on the railing while the four genin settled on the steps in front of him. "Alright, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourselves, one at a time."

Yuki almost facepalmed when Naruto and Sakura immediately started a tirade against the newcomer. Not that Yuki didn't disagree with them- but, as she suspected, the far more experienced ninja easily answered every one of their demands with flawless dodges that left the two in seething masses of foiled consternation.

So, thus followed a dully predictable pattern.

Naruto- ramen, Hokage. Quite surprising that he didn't spare Sakura even passing reference, but- check!

Sakura- Sasuke, Sasuke, and- oh yeah- Sasuke! Without any actually words. Check!

Sasuke- emo-ism, clan (well, that explained the silent mode), and revenge. Ok, given her newest discovery, check and a sort of half revelation (she had a more than decent guess who that 'certain someone' was). She now also knew which button to start punching on him.

Then it was her turn.

"Uzumaki Yuki- also known as Margaret Dresden. I have a lot of things I like and have still to learn about and figure out as I go. Dislikes- vampires, people blinded by their egos, and just basically bullies in general.

"My goals…" here she paused to think about how best to word this, "to make sure I never see people I care about being preyed on by assholes who forget their filthy origins and subsequent place in this world of the living."

Yuki held Kakashi's gaze for as long as she dared before glancing along the line of her new team out the corner of her eye.

Kakashi had slated his eyes a tiny fraction; enough to acknowledge he had a general understanding already why she was here. Sasuke looked rather surprised- she would definitely be storing that stunned look away for later blackmail. Sakura suddenly had this expression like she'd just seen Yuki for the first time. Naruto remained tight lipped, passing on only the tiniest of grimaces with his eyes to acknowledge her frigid statement.

"Good, you're each unique and you have your own ideas." Yuki could feel the sudden, unvoiced exhales of relief from her teammates. Her own senses, however, warned her that those were about to be turned around for good. "We'll have our first mission tomorrow."

Yep, what did she say? Totally out of the blue.

A survival exercise on a completely different scale of what they'd experienced so far.

She had to say, his chuckling was both ego tickling and not at all encouraging.

Even more so was the sudden enlightenment that only nine Genin actually made it. Although, she had her suspicions this was probably more of a statistic than an actual rule. She's been careful to read and double check all information pertaining to the testing of new shinobi. She'd seen no such rule- although she'd be sure to double check tonight, along with anything she could find on one Hatake Kakashi- bluffer extraordinaire.

**_currently-_**

That had been yesterday. He'd seemed so cool and above them then.

But since that moment he'd dismissed them, she'd dedicated all her time to dig up every crumb and morsel the archives had to offer- even sending Naruto to burn through their budget by eating at Ichiraku's so she wouldn't have to cook.

Kakashi was late- as all his reports seemed to indicate. She'd eaten breakfast and planned to live with the consequences should her hypothesis be wrong.

But he was late, late, LATE!

She could suddenly feel a spark of hope blossoming in her gut.

Maybe there was a chance the test had been engineered to accommodate all of them?

Fat chance! The way he suddenly dropped in on them so causally with that smile?

Let the game commence.

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**_Reviews! PLEASE! O, _ ,0_**  
  
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	7. We've Got a Long Way to Go

**_FINALLY found time to hammer this out between work and the maniac push to finish my own novel. Deepest apologies for taking so long; thanks for sticking with this story, here's a Mouse to demand belly rubs while you read._ **

**Chapter VI: We've Got a Long Way to Go**

 

  Kakashi ’s hand whipped out to latch onto his newest prodigy’s shoulder.

  “If they want to move on, they have to pass the test. That means _without_ your input.” The girl flattened her lips in visible exasperation but said nothing. _She would make an excellent ANBU,_ he thought.

  “Just a few more minutes.” He normally did not offer advice to the fresh minds tossed his way in dim hopes of miraculously developing some kind of phenomenon; but this kid was finding her way quickly onto his list of exceptions.

 

**_One hour thirty_ ** **_-three minutes earlier…_ **

  "Wait a minute, there's four of us, how come there's only three bells?"

  "Well, normally I would do this practice with only two to ensure at least one of you would end up tied to a post and, ultimately, disqualified for failing to complete the mission.

  "However, since there is an extra one of you when there would normally be three, I have decided that the ones who manage to retrieve a bell will become part of the official team.

  "The one who fails will be sent back to the academy."

  Four pairs of eyes twitched in different directions as each carefully eyed the three tiny pieces of seemingly completely innocuous metal dangled before them…

  **_One hour thirty minutes earlier…_**

    Naruto reacted exactly how the once-again-dismally-appointed-captain expected.

   Hot tempered and a set of lungs bigger than the fox inside him- almost mirror image of the experienced ninja’s first impressions of his late sensei’s wife. Except, given the time of peace they lived in, the boy barely manage to exceed the ‘sudden and unorthodox attack’ point of his expectations.

  True, the mastering of the second Hokage’s jutsu at his skill level was more than impressive; but the kid had a long road of learning that numbers was not even a barely equitable match to good old fashion experienced talent.

**_One hour-fifteen minutes earlier…_ **

 The mop of bubblegum-colored locks had an even longer way to go in learning the difference between the safety of a classroom’s four walls and the battlefield.

  A _really_ long way.

  If her lucky stars were that bright and he miraculously found her worthy enough to hand in his level of demand…

**_One hour-ten minutes earlier…_**

 Uchiha almost gave him a run for his money.

  Almost.

  If you were talking the price of the newest fad of revenge for your dead clan and all.

  The kid had some promising moves; especially considering whom he was related to.

   However, the Village of Hidden Leaves’ best ninja since the legends of the great wars had no intention of dwelling on such matters. His only thoughts were directed to upholding the ideals and heartfelt wishes of his own late sensei.

  Young Sasuke had almost as much work cut out for him as his less academically apt teammates.

  Had Itachi still been here and Fugaku the head of village security, the platinum-haired jonin seriously doubted this evaluation would have been as mundane- despite its refreshing surprises; but his musings quickly shut down any sympathy he might have held for the two’s youngest relation.

**_One hour ago…_**

     The last thing Kakashi had expected, given his fresh experience with the later two of the team, was to find the second Uzumaki calmly standing by the river skipping stones. Naruto was long gone, the neatly sliced rope hanging from the branches testament to Yuki’s actions while he was busy with the others.

  “Sensei.” He frowned at the one word greeting. He was quite sure there was no way she could have heard him, he had been careful to hide his chakra signature despite his lacking faith that they’d be able to do anything even if they knew where he was.

  Nevertheless, there was no mistaking the way she tossed a glance over her shoulder in a precise line to where he crouched tucked back in the bushes.

  Of course! He’d almost forgotten the noted oddities on her forms. He never met a vampire before and it has never crossed his mind that he ever would. Amongst the expected abilities listed, super strength and such, were notes about her seeming capability to sense even the slightest hint of change in the energy around her.

  Plus, if the stories one hears about these creatures were true, the heightened senses that made even a normal vampire hard to sneak up on would mean one trained as a ninja would be near impossible to ambush.

  Considering what he’d seen with Naruto, he decided the direct approach might be the more appropriate one in this case.

  “So, you knew where I was.” He was careful to keep his tone light and neutral to avoid showing her how much that little trick had frazzled him.

  She threw him another look over her shoulder. Not condescending, but it was obvious she must know what she’d done. “You read my file. I can sense any energy shift in the area if I concentrate, even if the chakra signature is being disguised.

  “Hmmm,” Kakashi hummed. “Where is Naruto?”

  Yuki shrugged. “He ran off as soon as I cut him down and I lost him in the woods.

  “It’s not going to work, by the way.”

  “What?” For the first time in a very long time, Kakashi felt a vein over his eyebrow twitch just perceptibly. He wasn’t irritated, but something about that just-there patronizing smile was getting to him.

  “Your test. It’s to see if we can work together as a team, right?” So, she _was_ smarter than he had given her credit for. "Not gonna work."

  “And why is that?”

   Yuki rolled her eyes as if it should be obvious. “If it was anyone else, I may have had a chance of talking Naruto into toning down enough to work with them. But he and Sasuke are the kind that are always going to be rivals.

  “Both know the other is strong, but neither wants to give for any kind of recognition- it might look like they’re admitting to being weaker than the other. Plus, Sasuke has a terminal case of head-up-ass, and Sakura is too busy drooling over said ass to pay attention to anything else. It will take a miracle of apocalyptic extremes to get that lot to even talk civilly for five minutes.”

  “You’re one to talk, you don’t seem to have much faith in those teammates of yours either.”

  A dry snort was easily heard from the student. “I have no problem trying to work with them. I’m just being realistic about the situation.

  “But I’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you that.” Yuki frowned at the stone she was hefting in her hand, then, with a sigh, dropped it and the rest of her collection into the stream. “I guess I might as well give it a shot, just so I can say later that I tried.”

  “Wait!” Kakashi could not be sure if it was because he wasn’t accustomed to people turning their backs so casually on him when in conflict or some deep-seated instinct that warned him, but he inexplicably found himself diving to get a grip on the retreating student’s shoulder.

  Kakashi gasped as an iron hold snagged his ankle, ripping him out of the bushes and ending his flight with a belly flop in the river that would have been painful had he not been wearing his vest.

  Sputtering, he clawed his way to the surface and took in his surroundings in shock. On the bank, Uzumaki Yuki wiggled her fingers in a little wave before disappearing in a cloud of smoke with a smile.

  A shadow clone!?

  Then where was the real one?

  “I did warn you I could sense any energy changes.” The slight tut-tut tone led Kakashi to the girl emerging from the tree her brother had hung from not long ago.

  Remarkable! She hadn’t fallen for his clone trick at all. Already her scores were far more promising than any of the others. But what jutsu was she using? The the crystal clear waters revealed nothing as to what could be holding him right where he was. Although he could definitely feel it there, wrapped around his limb like steel fingers he couldn’t see. Had she been a Nara he would have suspected a shadow trick. But not a spot was to be found on the sun soaked glade between them. This had not been on her list of known jutsu. Was it something she’d developed recently, or just never told anyone about?

  He tried to get a feel for what the jutsu might be and how to counter it, but there was nothing there, only the feeling like a thin tendril holding him in place with his head just above the water. It couldn’t be her magic. The Hokage had very expressly taken great pains to explain some finer points of the power. One of which was that it could not work in flowing water. Which meant it was chakra he’d have to deal with.

  He didn’t want to, but if he was going to be her teacher he needed to know what he was up against. He hadn’t even sensed it approaching until it had him good and tangled right the way she wanted him. If she had developed something this strong at such an early age, her entire profile was going to require a good deal of reevaluating.

  However, just as he was reaching for his forehead protector-covered left eye, the pressure around his ankle vanished. He almost sank back under the surface in surprise at the abrupt lack of support. Kicking to make sure he really was free and treading water on his own, he calmly made his way back to the bank and hauled himself up.

  In this entire time Yuki didn’t move, beyond a bare twitch of her right hand when the jutsu disappeared.

  Hmmm, so it would seem the girl did indeed have instincts rare for most graduates in this day and age. Had Sasuke matching her in the test been a coincidence or just a stroke of luck? She seemed to be displaying no outward signs of emotions, unlike the hotheaded Uchiha’s fierce head-on attack method. And she’d made sure her first trap counted, instead of hoping to simply put Kakashi off with the distraction. Not to mention luring him into relaxing with her act of casualness to the situation and then recognizing it was a clone he’d sent out instead of coming to talk personally.  

  If she had wanted to kill him with that attack it was most likely she could have. Or at the very least, put a high chance of drowning on the table. 

  So why had she let go? Had she not been able to sustain the jutsu, or was it something else. He quickly checked his belt.

  No, the bells were still there, all tied securely.

  “Fine, in the spirit of things, I’ll go see what I can do.” She called back as she walked away. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”

  Well, he certainly wouldn’t. He was going to be busy dealing with a certain blond sibling he spotted, now on the loose and about to cheat the rules.

  After tying Naruto to the post for his shenanigans, he went in search of what the rest of his class was doing.

  This was most certainly an entertaining sight he set eyes upon.

  All three of the squad that remained free were gathered in the clearing where he’d left Sasuke neck-deep in the ground.

 Sakura, for all her talk, was blithely spread on the ground a few meters from the others, far removed from the land of wakey-wakey.

  The remaining two were…well…

  “Hold _still_!” Yuki snapped. “If you like your man parts and face the way they are, then I suggest shutting up as well.”

 “ _Teme_! I don’t need your help!”

  Yuki stopped what she was doing and walked until she could crouch in front of Sasuke to get a firm grip on either cheek. “Now listen here,” she said, stretching the flesh between her fingers into a cartoonish face. “If we’re gonna have a chance to get those bells we need to work _together_.”

 “And wha maksh yoo sho sure Iggg verk vish yoo?” Yuki smiled smugly as she let go of the ebony haired boy’s cheeks.

  “Because, if we all work as one to get the bells then he can’t really make a fair choice who success should go to and who is leaving. If he can’t say one person managed it on their own he can’t say the others failed. Not that I expect any of that to squeeze through that skull of yours.

 “Now shut up, I’ve never done this before and I think you’d like to see tomorrow in one piece.” Thus said, she got up and walked back to where she’d been before the conversation.

  Kakashi watched with interest as the girl went about freeing her teammate. He couldn’t decide if she’d chosen to work behind Sasuke because she didn’t want him to get a clear view of what she was doing or if she just didn’t feel like moving the lug snoring in front of him.

  About three feet back from where the boy was stuck, Yuki placed her hands on the ground and was quick to form a look of intense concentration.

  In her file it said she had a visitor, the one who brought her originally, every three-to-four months since her powers developed. The purpose of the visits was to help her with rudimentary magic work. The visitor stayed almost a month the first time, presumably to help the girl get a solid footing with her new power. After that, the Hokage had taken personal charge of overseeing the sproutling wizard’s development. The follow-up calls had been to check her progress and add new skills to the lessons she was to practice.

  From the Hokage’s explanation, Kakashi understood that magic worked something like a supercharged form of chakra- but bulkier in terms of both raw power and wielding. He wasn’t overly sure as to the extent of Yuki’s ability, so now was going to be a good chance to observe this unique talent.

   “ _T_ _erra_ _obeditis_!” The command, spoken in a language the jonin did not understand, was accompanied by a sharp jerking motion.

 In response to the move, a chunk of earth about half her size flew violently into the air. Never loosing that look of concentrated focus, Yuki moved her hands to the side- the dirt moving in tandem with them. When the soil was a sufficient distance from where it had come from, Yuki relaxed her concentration and the pile dropped to the earth with a heaving thud.

 Interesting, it would appear she could control earth almost like using a jutsu. But the whole thing looked both time and energy consuming. He could see what the Third meant by bulky; or perhaps she simply wasn’t used to something this large yet?

  “What are you doing back there?” Sasuke demanded upon hearing the ominously weighty sounds.

  “Keep your panties on, I’m almost done.” Lovely, and she was snarky to boot. In Kakashi’s experience that meant the person was either overcompensating or tired of working with people whose heads were permanently welded where the sun had no business shining.  

  He didn’t think she was overcompensating.

  Once again, Yuki moved her hands over where the first chunk had come from and repeated the words more forcefully. This time a pile almost triple the first crawled its way out of the ground to float like its predecessor and be moved away.

  “Ok, wiggle.” Sasuke tried to shoot a mean glare, but couldn’t turn his head far enough to point it at the intended recipient. “I could grab you by the ears and pull if that helps.” Yuki said just a little _too_ cheerfully.

  Now that he’d changed positions to get a better look, Kakashi could see what the girl had done.

  Rather than trying to dig around Sasuke until he was free enough to use his arms to aid pulling himself up the rest of the way, Yuki had removed the dirt to form a decently sized hole behind the one Uchiha was trapped in. With a bit of wiggling, it would not take too much effort to push the half-foot-or-so of dirt between the two into the empty one, efficiently freeing the boy.

  “Hurry up. Some of us don’t have the pleasure to luxuriate in a mud spa all year.” Sasuke cast the girl a withering stare which said ‘tell anyone about this and I will roast you alive’, but proceeded to do as she said and twist and squirm to loosen the dirt.  

  After a minute of heaving, the wall gave way and Sasuke, unprepared and still stuck below the shins, promptly toppled back to land on his ass.

  Not a sound came out of Yuki, but Kakashi had his answer on the choice to dig behind her rival. He made a mental note to start checking around him if she ever got that glint in her eyes when he was involved.

  Luckily, it would seem Yuki was also mature enough to know when to get serious. She quickly moved to get a grip on Sasuke’s wrist as he struggled up and pulled him out of the pit one-handedly with seemingly almost no effort.

  Kakashi blinked.

  He knew all the trainees were in excellent shape, but there was no way a twelve-year-old had just hauled up another kid her size like he weighed something not even bordering on bothersome. Her file simply described her average strength as 'inhuman'; if that was Yuki simply pulling a teammate out of a hole, imagine what she could do to an opponent's skeleton if she was particularly pissed. That ex-teacher, Mizuki, had no idea how fortunate he was that Yuki had left the beating to Naruto. Now he knew why her student file noted the special separate regime added to her sparring training and also took pains to caution about getting hit in a fight with her.

  Seeming satisfied with her work, Yuki left Sasuke brushing dirt off his clothes and went to wake Sakura. “What the hell happened to her anyway?”

  “Not sure,” Sasuke paused his dusting to glance at the unconscious pinket. “She was running, saw me, made some weird faces, then passed out.”

   Kakashi saw the look of controlled humor on Yuki’s face; obviously she was thinking the same as himself- brain overload from shock of her idol’s fall off the pedestal. That girl has a _really_ **_long_** way to go.

    “Get up before I smack you.” Lucky for all present, Yuki did not have to carry through her threat and they managed to stay civil long enough for her to lay out her theory the second time for Sakura.

 The sensei had to hand it to her; she wasn’t giving them the actual reason outright, she knew he wanted them to figure it out for themselves.

  “No way! You heard Sasuke. He almost got a bell. He doesn’t need to work with some looser like you.”

  Kakashi smiled just a bit approvingly at Yuki’s command of self control as she massaged the spot between her eyes while the pink kunoichi ranted in her hero’s defense. He knew plenty of people who would have slapped the other girl senseless again by now just to get her to _shut **up**_. Unfortunately, the other one wasn’t helping either.

    He had already long seen why Yuki would have taken the time to broach the subject of quite probable failure of the entire team with him. Sasuke had immediately shot down the idea almost before Yuki finished explaining her logic and now Sakura wasn’t much better. For someone getting top scores in the classroom, the second girl could be surprisingly dense. Teamwork may not be as much a stressed point as he thought it should be, but _come_ _on_. Was she seriously just throwing in the towel like that?

  And here he used to think Obito was hopeless.

  Even Sasuke's abrupt mood shifts from clouded to antagonistic and obscure mutter about his being the only one able to defeat 'That' person did nothing to visibly phase the laid-back tone of the second Uzumaki.

  Abruptly, the sound of the clock alarm cuts through the tension building between the three.

   Sasuke swears, but Yuki doesn’t even so much as flick an eyelid when he finds some way to paste them failing on her being so slow with getting him out. She most definitely does not mention she had Kakashi in a positively unheard of situation.

  Instead, she shrugs and turns to start walking back to the posts.

**………………..**

“Do I want to know what happened?” Yuki sighed and looked dismally at Naruto, who grinned and giggled.

 Kakashi has to wonder. Just how was it that both Minato and Kushina managed to excel so well in their own training, yet their son was almost making Obito look good. Almost. The blond was trussed up to the middle of the three posts, surrounded by his classmates who looked equally as miserable, with the exception of one.

  The second Uzumaki had chosen not to join Sasuke and Sakura on the ground. Instead, she leaned against the post behind Sasuke. Most likely to deny him the chance to continue glaring at her without twisting around, and, thus, turn his back on the teacher.

  “Uh oh, stomachs growling huh? That’s too bad.” Although he said this to the first three, Kakashi wondered at the suspiciously amused twinkle Yuki wasn’t trying all that hard to hide in her expression.

  “Oh, by the way, about this exercise- well, I’ve decided, I won’t send any of you back to the academy.”

  His words were met as would be expected. Naruto and Sakura flipping out exuberantly after getting over their surprise, Sasuke smirked, and Yuki cocked an eyebrow in both surprise and question.

  So she wasn’t one to celebrate early. Good to know.

  “Then… then that means all four of us…”

  “Yes," Kakashi smiled, playing the card to its max, “all of you… are being dropped from the program.  
  
 " _PERMANANTLY_!!!”   

   “Naruto," the terse words calmly cutting solidly through the predicted dissents, though started evenly, took an abrupt turn sharply, " _s_ _hut up_.”   
  
  Naruto shut up.

  Nee-san normally did not get angry with her Ototo. Nee-san loved her Ototo too much and thought he was generally too cute to be more than highly irate with him. But when Nee-san's voice took that angry edge, a smart smack upside the head would soon follow if pushed. And angry Nee-san could smack _hard_. 

  Of course, the silence was expectedly short-lived.

  “YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS YUKI! HE SAID WE’D JUST BE SENT BACK TO THE ACADEMY! HE CAN’T JUST CHANGE HIS MIND LIKE THAT!!!”

 “Actually he can.” This time the edge was gone from the sister’s voice. “Though I would like to know why.”

  “Because you don’t think like ninja. You think like little kids; like _brats_!”

   Wowwie! That was certainly not the reaction the renowned jonin would have expected from an Uchiha. Although, given Sasuke’s earlier performance, the attack was no surprise.

   “You think it’s all about you.” His explanation was rudely cut off by an earsplitting shriek.

  “LET GO OF SASUKE!!! YOU CAN’T STEP ON HIM LIKE HE’S SOME BUG!!!”

  “Maybe if he would _listen_ instead of hitting his head against a wall all the time, then Kakashi sensei wouldn’t have to. Now shut _up_ , you might learn something.” Kakashi was impressed. Even while getting the hammer, Yuki was still self-contained and attentive to the situation.

  “You don’t know what it means to be a ninja! You think it’s a game, huh?” Sakura shrank back and the boys gasped in surprise at the hard tone. Only Yuki’s eyes hardened to match the mood Kakashi was laying out.

 “Why do you think we put you on squads? Did you consider that question for one moment?”

   “I…I don’t know what you mean.”

  Seriously?! This was getting ridiculous.

  “I mean, you never realized what this exercise is all about! Not even _close_.”

   “What it’s about?” Kakashi had to wonder what Kushina would have done if she’d been around to hear that dumb exclamation coming from her son.

  “Yes.” Kakashi was really starting to get annoyed with their nonexistent progress. “That’s what determines whether you _pass_ or _fail_.” 

  “But that’s… I mean, I wanted to ask you about that from the beginning.” This time Yuki rolled her eyes at Sakura’s pitiful bid to cover her ass in this matter where she could not have failed more horribly.

  Kakashi scoffed. “Use your head. Three people, normally, on a squad. Why do you think we would do that?”

  “AH!!! HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHY _YOU_ PICKED THREE PEOPLE?!! WE DIDN’T MAKE THE RULES!!!”

  To her credit, Yuki still made no response, other than deliver a sharp smack to the back of her brother’s head as warning to stop making a bigger fool of himself.

  The jonin finally decided it was time to call the lecture to an end. “It’s so basic. Yuki, why don’t you tell us?”

  Yuki looked surprised to be called out, but answered. “Teamwork. He wanted to see if we could pull together as a group.”

   Stunned silence met her revelation.

  “Just working together? Is that what you mean?”

  “ _Seriously_?!”

  “That’s what I mean,” Kakashi answered over Sakura’s exclamation and Yuki’s annoyed mutter.

  “It’s too late now; but if all four of you had come at me, you _might_ have been able to take them.

   “Well, anyway, it’s over.” The resigned tone echoed deep inside each rejected trainee, no matter how much they had really fought and given to this cause.

   “You set it up with four people, but only three bells! If we worked together and got the bells, only three of us could keep them- and that would lead to group conflict and the squad would break up!”

  “ _Exactly_.” Kakashi sighed. “I purposely pitted you against each other.

 “I wanted to see if you could overcome that and put the squad ahead of yourselves. A genin should have a natural feel for teamwork. Only _one_ of you saw this and tried to help the rest. But you…” here he stopped to glare at each of the guilty parties, “it never even crossed your mind.”

  “Sakura!” The pinket flinched at being called out. “You obsessed about Sasuke, who was gone; while Naruto was right in front of you and you wouldn’t lift a finger to help him!

  “Naruto! You do everything on your own. _Everything_! You even decided to sneak off to break the rules by eating alone and left your sister behind while she was trying to find the other two to see if you all could form some kind of plan.

  “And _you_ Sasuke,” the teacher found it necessary to bear down more weight to keep the struggling kid where he was to hear the truth, “thought the others were _so **far**_ beneath you, they were _worthless_. Even after Yuki dug you out of that hole when you couldn’t do anything for yourself.

   “ _Arrogance_!” All those who had been called out flinched at the growl. “Ninja missions are carried out in squads. Of course you need individual skills, but _teamwork_ is the most essential element.

  “Every shinobi understands this. When individuals put themselves above the squad, this can lead to failure and _death_!

  “For example, Sakura!” No one had time to react before the blade was against Sasuke’s neck. “Kill Naruto now or Sasuke dies!”

  The reaction _that_ got was both loud and shocked. The thought of having to kill someone from their own village had obviously never crossed the minds of the blond and pinket. But the fact that a jonin was holding a knife to one of his own student’s neck and giving what was possibly an actual serious order in the form of an ultimatum threw them helplessly for a loop.

  “That’s what happens on a mission.” Finished making his point, Kakashi removed the kunai from Sasuke’s neck. “The enemy takes a hostage, and you’ve got an impossible choice.

  “And someone ends up _dead_.

  “On every mission your life is on the line.” Getting up off Sasuke, he walked back to stand before the monument with his back turned to them so they would not see the hooded expression in his one visible eye as his gaze automatically picked out two names not so far apart in the list.

  “Did you get a look at this stone? The names engraved on it?” The jonin’s voice took on a reverent tone as he spoke. “They are all ninjas who are honored as heroes in our village.”

 “That’s it, that’s it, that’s it! Now I know. I’ve decided I’m gonna have my name engraved on that stone! I’m not gonna live and die for nothing like a dog. I’m gonna be a hero! A hero!” Kakashi had to wonder what type of superhuman patience Yuki must possess to be able to stand this much insanity day in and day out.

  “They are… a special kind of hero.”

   Naruto was not to be perturbed, so he elaborated. “They’re all… KIA.”

  Surprise, surprise, the kid was just fine with being whatever it was without even knowing what it meant, so long as it sounded cool. At least Sakura's mournful explanation of the initials beat out Yuki needing to put a damper on that right away.  

  “This is a memorial stone. The names of my closest friends are engraved here.”

   Silence settled like a heavy blanket over the jonin’s words. Those who understood what that meant taking the moment to pay their silent respects to those who had gone. The other two contemplated what it would be like to lose someone that close.

 Pulling himself back to the present, Kakashi turned to face the four students.

 “Alright then, I’ve decided.” They all stood to attention to hear the verdict of their fate.

  “Yuki!” The girl who had mostly said nothing throughout the entire lecture except snapped reprimands to listen stood even straighter and gave him her full attention- as much as one can without directly looking you in the eye. “Because you were the only one to understand the main idea of the exercise and chose to at least _attempt_ to act on it, you pass.”

  “What?!”

  “How come?!”

  “That’s not fair!!!”

  Kakashi’s look turned deadly. “Sasuke! Sakura! You have no right to protest.

  “Yuki got you out of that trap your own arrogance landed you in, Sasuke. Then she tried to help again by getting the two of you to work with her. _Remember_?”

 The two called out had the good grace to look slightly guilty as they thought of their reactions to the aid. Kakashi decided one more nail might not hurt to drive the point home.

  “Even though she could have easily taken all three bells when she managed to put me in a very compromising position, she still chose to complete the mission as it was intended to be done. To try to work together with you, even after she laid out almost the exact same assessment I just did. She knew you would never agree to work with her on this, but never the less, she gave it a shot anyway.

  “And did you so much as properly consider her suggestion that you three team up, before blasting her with speeches about why you couldn’t work with her?”

  The two startled at the last part. How did he know what they’d done?

 “Yes, I was watching you _the entire time_. Not even so much as a 'thank you' for getting you out of my jutsu.”

  Sasuke opened his mouth, to protest no doubt, but then seemed to think better of it and closed his trap again.

  “What do you mean ‘she could have taken the bells’? Yuki, what were you doing all this time?”

   Kakashi couldn’t help a smirk. “While you were over here trying to cheat, _Naruto_ , your sister came the closest to killing me anyone has in quite a while.

  “You really must tell me about that jutsu later.”

  Yuki’s response was her eyes closing to slits a bit more. “And what about them?”

  “Hm, oh yes. Ahem,” Kakashi cleared his throat to continue. “As for the three of you, I’m going to give you one more chance.

  “But I’m gonna make it _much_ harder on you.” The mood lightened considerably. “You’ll have three hours to get a bell. Eat lunch now to build up strength; _but_ , Naruto doesn’t get any.

  “It’s your punishment for breaking the rules and trying to eat by yourself." The addressed party squirmed with mouth in crinkled in a zigzag of guilt and avoided the teacher's pointed gaze.

   “And if anyone tries to feed him… that person will immediately fail. We only need two of you to make a three-man squad with Yuki.” The dangerous glare silenced any protest from the three being addressed. “ _I_ make the rules. _You follow them_. Got it?”

  Receiving vigorous nods as his answer, Kakashi straightened back up and his face changed to a smile as he turned to address the one who had passed. “So, how about we go somewhere to discus that strange jutsu of yours over lunch. My treat.”

  “Ummm, can’t I stay and watch?”

  Kakashi smiled. “Of course, we’ll come back later.”

  Yuki shifted a bit, not entirely sure she trusted the man not to be up to something this time as well. He’d been awfully explicit about Naruto not being able to eat. How was he planning on enforcing that?

  But there wasn’t much she could do about it at this point, so she reluctantly accepted his offer.

  “Good luck,” she said, punching Naruto lightly in the shoulder as she passed.

  ‘”Just you wait! I’m gonna beat this test no matter what!”

  Yuki twitched an eyebrow as if to say 'oh?'

  “Errr,” Naruto corrected quickly, “ _we’re_ gonna beat this test and get those bells.”

   Smiling and quirking her eyebrows in amused approval this time, Yuki took off to catch up to the retreating back of her new sensei.

*****

  “Knew you were up to something,” Yuki shot a dirty sideways glare at the silver-haired jonin.

  Lunch, as it turned out, was more bentos Kakashi sent a shadow clone to fetch while teacher and student sat and waited up in a tree far enough back in the woods the others would not be able to notice them.

  From this point they had a bird’s-eye view of the three that remained by the posts. They were too far away to hear any conversation, but it was clear Sasuke and Sakura were planning to stick to the instructions on this one.

  But why was Kakashi so insistent on laying down that rule and adamantly making sure it was followed?

  In the silence that settled between the two, Yuki mentally hemmed and hawed through different scenarios. The teacher wanted them to learn teamwork, the warning yesterday had been a sorry excuse to make sure they were definitely hungry this morning, and he had taken specific pains to make sure the order that Naruto not be fed was chiseled in their craniums.

  Now, if she took it all at face value it could just be the teacher being a bit mean to reinforce his superiority over them- as had too often been the case with her math teacher back when she was still attending normal school. Or merely a good teacher needing to lay down the law for a bunch of egg headed students who apparently needed training wheels and a lead leash for every step of the way.

  However, this was a ninja training program: a place where one needed to look beneath the plots to discover the real plot that lay beneath the second or more layers of plots.

  It took all fifteen seconds of them finding a safe place to sequester themselves to watch the proceedings that she had the plot sorted out.

  “You want to see if they’ll follow your rules and submissively accept working with a potentially weak link as part of the deal!”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Kakashi’s bland look was to the point she would have crushed his face if she were any less self-controlled. 

  "It’s not about Naruto not eating or them following rules.

  "You want to see what they will do now, continue to follow your rule at face value or risk doing what they need to prepare for and complete the job as a team. You don't want Naruto to not eat, you want to see if they will realize how stupid your rule is and defy it- the way a ninja in the field might need to."

  Kakashi regarded the girl with his own raised eyebrow and questioned, "And how do you figure that?"

  Yuki huffed and sharply tapped the end of her still packaged chopsticks clenched in her hand against her bouncing knee, a small tick she occasionally displayed when thinking hard. "Sometimes, being in a team requires doing things that go against the set protocols- a number of which I understand are for the sake of functional, but utterly ridiculous if you bother to use any form of common sense. Let's not _start_ on generally accepted forms of reasoning."

  "You certainly have an interesting opinion for a freshly graduate." Kakashi couldn't help a small twinge of the upward tilt of his hidden mouth seeping into the words.

   "Blame it on the excess of 'teamwork' based movies the Family section gets swarmed with in Western culture." Yuki had stopped tapping, but now used her left hand to massage that side's temple."

  "Think of them more as 'guidelines'." Both teacher and pupil met eyes for as long as the surprised second dared, then both burst into quite snorts and chuckles muffled behind sealed lips.

  With an exhale of much more relaxed nerves, Yuki snapped off the rubber bands holding the paper box closed and dug in. She may have ignored Naruto's shocked protests and cheerfully polished off the light pre-dawn breakfast she prepared for both on the strong likelihood her research proved properly valid (one could never be fully sure with a shinobi), but that still meant her last meal was over eight hours ago. Her heightened taste buds picked up no strange elements that should not have been in the rice, meat, or veggies, and so she dug in with gusto, though keeping an ever present ear out to the forest around her and an eye on the three in the clearing.

  For a good amount of time, both groups carried out their eating as normally as might be expected… until the most _unexpected_ occurred.

  Yuki and the sensei were just close enough for her to Listen (a skill from a successful experiment of mixing her ninja training to be still to hear better and magic focus) for the actual words without taping into her vampire level. But even if that were not the case, the actions and tones still perfectly resonating loud across the clearing were undeniable.

  First, and any gods that be actually real strike her is she be mistaken, Sasuke- _Sasuke_ , the prince of sulk- offered up his box to the blond of the face un-interpretable to anything but empty stomach misery. All in the name of succeeding, mind.  

  Second surprise: the owner of the pink hair, hard to confuse even this far away, offering and then willingly _feeding_ , although with a still discernible body language turned away as much in tension as awkwardness at the situation, her condemned teammate.

  Yuki couldn't help a sudden desire to sneak closer to watch better, but the sensei seemed to misread her intentions and stopped her before she could get one foot under her to stand. Nevertheless, she said nothing, but still scowled annoyed at his stupid order. Together they watched as Sakura scooped up a load of rice and fed it to her teammate.

  Immediately, the moment the forbidden food disappeared down the gullet, a twinge on Yuki's senses she had come to identify with substitution alerted her.  

  Except the thing changed was the real sensei sitting by her side, for a clone which dissolved into its own cloud even before she had time to discern what had happened. Proving once more, even with her advance vampiric abilities, she had such a very long way to go.

  With an irate huff, she leapt speedily after the ass as ominous clouds darkened the clearing. Cheater. No one gets to pull a move like that to hog all the fun of intimidating Sasuke without her.

 

* * *

 

**_The 'teamwork' movie reference actually is the very thought I had upon hearing the bell challenge, way too many 'team' movies growing up._ **

**_I have done extensive digging, but there is nothing to be found supporting Kakashi's claim that only nine students are allowed to become genin. Personally, that would be a stupid move since, as Sakura points out, if the ones who fail have to wait until the next year this would leave the village extremely shorthanded, especially in a war. So, since I'm assuming that was a statistic than an actual rule, I will be sticking with it._ **

 

 


End file.
